US-backed YPG ships wheat to Iraq despite bread crisis in Syria

Despite the bread crisis facing the residents of areas under the control of the Bashar Assad regime in Syria, the PKK terrorist group's Syrian branch, the YPG, continues to transfer tons of wheat being stored in Hassakeh province to Iraq.

According to information obtained by Anadolu Agency (AA) from local sources, the terrorist group stored wheat after buying it from farmers in the region last year for cheap and is now making a profit by trading it with Iraq.

Trucks delivering the wheat have been using the Semelka border crossing under the supervision of the United States for nearly a month.

Semelka is a border crossing established between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq and the YPG-occupied regions of northeastern Syria about 1 kilometer (.62 miles) downstream from the Iraqi-Syrian-Turkish tripoint and just north of Faysh Khabur in Iraq and Khanik in Syria consisting of a pontoon bridge across the Tigris. The border crossing has been intermittently closed by the KRG but has been open permanently since June 2016. Economic exchanges have since then begun to normalize between northeastern Syria and northern Iraq.

Moreover, the YPG seized control of one of the biggest flour production centers in the region from the Assad regime.

Due to the lack of oil and wheat supply, many bakeries in the regime-controlled areas of the country could not produce a sufficient amount of bread, causing a bread crisis throughout the country.

As AA reported earlier this month, some bakeries in Damascus, Aleppo, Homs and Hama have been forced to close due to a shortage of oil and wheat. People in regime-controlled areas have to stand in long lines in front of bakeries to buy bread for their families.

The country's fertile lands and oil reserves are mostly controlled by the YPG.

Due to financial problems, six Russian companies have stopped providing wheat to the regime. The price of bread increased nine times over a year as a result of economic problems and the lack of production in the country.

As the conflict in the war-torn country marked its 10th anniversary, the Assad regime is now incapable of providing even the most basic needs of the population.

Syria's pound hit a new low against the U.S. dollar on the black market this month in the latest blow to the war-battered economy. The exchange rate reached 4,000 Syrian pounds to the U.S. dollar for the first time since the start of the conflict a decade ago.

Syria's economy has been battered by 10 years of war and is reeling from the effects of a financial crisis in neighboring Lebanon that has stemmed the flow of dollars into regime-held areas.

On top of triggering a food scarcity crisis, YPG terrorists also disrupt the daily life of Syrian civilians with frequent attacks. Northern Syria's districts under Turkey-backed opposition control are regularly targeted by the YPG, which seized control of large swathes of land in the northern parts of the war-torn country with the Assad regime's blessing when clashes intensified in 2012. Ankara considers the YPG, which was backed by the U.S.-led anti-Daesh coalition on the pretext of fighting the Daesh terrorist group on the ground, a grave national security threat.