Drone attack hits US-led coalition base in southern Syria

The assault on al-Tanf, the place US troops are based mostly, injures two allied Syrian opposition fighters, the coalition says.

A drone assault hit a US-led coalition base in southern Syria, the US army’s Central Command has mentioned.

“Three one-way assault drones attacked the al-Tanf Garrison in Syria,” a CENTCOM assertion mentioned on Friday.

Two of the drones had been shot down by the coalition, however the third hit the compound, wounding two allied Syrian opposition fighters who acquired therapy, the assertion added.

“Assaults of this type are unacceptable,” CENTCOM spokesperson Joe Buccino mentioned, with out specifying who carried it out.

“They place our troops and our companions in danger and jeopardise the combat towards ISIL.”

There was no speedy declare of accountability for the assault.

Iran-backed forces are deployed in shut proximity to al-Tanf, a desert garrison on the strategically vital Baghdad-Damascus freeway, close to the border with Iraq and Jordan.

Iran is a key ally of the Syrian authorities and the coalition has disrupted comparable assaults on al-Tanf previously.

Sleeper cells of the armed ISIL (ISIS) group are additionally energetic within the space.

The coalition arrange the bottom in 2016 to coach Syrian fighters for the warfare towards ISIL.

It retained the power even after the fighters’ final Syrian outpost was overrun by Kurdish-led forces in March 2019.

Roughly 900 US troops stay at al-Tanf and different bases within the Kurdish-controlled northeast as a part of the coalition’s persevering with marketing campaign towards ISIL remnants.

The US has beforehand carried out assaults concentrating on what it says had been infrastructure amenities utilized by teams affiliated with Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The raids, it mentioned, had been in response to assaults allegedly launched by Iranian-backed fighters concentrating on al-Tanf.

The Syrian authorities has consistently expressed its opposition to the US position in Syria, and demanded that US forces withdraw.