Iraqis Are Pissed That Trump Said The US Might Try To Seize Their Oil, Again
TAL ABTA, Iraq — Abu Luay once battled US troops as a teenager in a series of ugly urban battles. Now the 27-year-old says he’s ready to sacrifice his family to fight the Americans again if the US follows through on President Donald Trump’s suggestion on Saturday to take the country’s oil.
“I participated in the attack against the Americans by attacking them with mortars and roadside bombs, and I’m ready to do it again,” said Abu Luay, an Iraqi security official who provided his nom de guerre and said he was not allowed to speak to the press. His is now fighting along the frontlines with armed Shia groups in northwest Iraq. “We kept our ammunition and weapons from the time the Americans left for fighting ISIS. But once ISIS is gone we will save our weapons for the Americans.”
Abu Luay and others spoke to BuzzFeed News one day after Trump made a series of explosive remarks to CIA employees — including suggesting that Americans should have taken Iraq’s oil and floated the possibility of seizing the Middle East country’s primary export and natural resource at some point in the futurTrump’s assertion that Iraqi oil led to the creation of ISIS does not square with facts.
ISIS was formed out of several jihadi and nationalist rebel groups that sprang up in Iraq after the US invasion, eventually taking root in Syria amid the chaos of that country’s civil war. Oil became an important component of ISIS’s finances shortly after it was formed and mostly in Syria. ISIS financing sources include oil and oil products as well as taxes, tolls and kidnappings for ransom.
Iraqis at this tiny outpost near the frontlines of the ISIS battle warn that any attempt by the US to seize their oil would destabilize the country, and the region, and possibly undermine the war against ISIS he has described as a top priorities.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/borzoudaragahi/iraqis-are-pissed-that-trump-said-the-us-might-try-to-seize?utm_term=.goXv7n8zE#.bde1d5Mvw
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