U.S. conducts new strikes on pro-Syrian government forces

U.S.-led aircraft struck a column of pro-Syrian government forces advancing toward a small U.S. outpost in southeastern Syria on Tuesday, the Pentagon said in a statement.

The strike marks a second time in less than a month that U.S. aircraft have targeted troops aligned with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Both times, the Pentagon said, were in selfdefense.

“Despite previous warnings, pro-regime forces entered the agreed-upon de-confliction zone with a tank, artillery, anti-aircraft weapons, armed technical vehicles and more than 60 soldiers posing a threat to Coalition and partner forces based at the At Tanf Garrison,” the U.S.-led coalition said in a statement.

It is unclear how many troops were killed or wounded in the bombing run and what legal rationale might cover the U.S.-led forces’ continued strikes on Syrian government forces.

On May 18, U.S. forces struck a convoy of pro-Syrian government forces that were driving in the direction of the U.S. base at Tanf. After warnings, both through the hotline and overhead passes, U.S. aircraft struck a number of their vehicles. That convoy, roughly 18 miles from the U.S. outpost, came to halt. In response, the U.S.-led coalition added additional “combat power” to help defend the Tanf base and dropped more than 90,000 leaflets telling the Syrian forces to leave.

“We are not increasing our role in the Syrian civil war, but we will defend our troops,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in May. “And that is a coalition element made up of more than just U.S. troops, and so we will defend ourselves (if ) people take aggressive steps against us.”

The Tanf outpost, located near the Syrian, Iraq and Jordanian border, has quietly become a flash point in the 6-year-old Syrian conflict. I Shiite militias loyal to Assad, along with Syrian government forces, are making a concerted push to recapture territory from the Islamic State in the area in a likely attempt to secure the border and the desert highway that runs into Iraq.

Meanwhile, the U.S.-led coalition and a contingent of U.S. and British Special Operations troops have been training a detachment of Syrian fighters there to ultimately lead an offensive into the Euphrates River valley.