U.S. warplanes hit pro-Assad militia convoy in Syria

American troops are in area to train rebels fighting ISIS.

WASHINGTON — U.S. warplanes in Syria attacked a pro-government convoy on Thursday after it ignored warnings a nd v i ol a t e d a restric ted zone around a base where United States and British Special Forces are training Syrian rebels to fight the Islamic State, Pentagon officials said.

T h e h o s t i l e A mer i c a n action, which was corroborated by both pro - and anti-government fighters on the ground, was at least the third time in recent months that the U.S. military has attacked forces loyal to President Bashar Assad of Syria.

On Thursday, U. S. offic i a l s s a i d, more t han 2 0 vehi c l e s drove wit hi n 1 8 miles of the al-Tanf base in southern Syria housing the American and British Special Forces, breaching the so-called deconfliction zone radius around the encampment.

Low-flying U.S. aircraft buzzed the convoy and fired a warning strike, trying to get the vehicles to reverse course, the Pentagon officials said, but when the convoy continued, the planes opened fire.

Syrian opposition fighters said that there were numerous casualties and that several vehicles were hit, including at least four tanks.

In a second encounter on Thursday, Pentagon officials said, a Syrian SU-22 fight- er-bomber that had entered the deconfliction zone was intercepted by a pair of F-22 fighter jets, but it was not fired upon and left the area.

There was no immediate comment on the U.S. action from the Syrian government or Russia, its principal ally.

U.S.-led coalition forces have been operating around the al-Tanf area for months, training and advising Syrian opposition fighters who are battling the Islamic State.

The deconfliction area was created as part of an agreement between the United States and Russia to avoid military accidents.

While the United States has covertly aided some Syrian rebels fighting Assad, it has directly struck pro-government forces only twice before — in 2016 in what it said was an accident, and this year in retaliation for chemical attacks it blamed on Assad’s forces.

The United States, which has long called for Assad to step down, began military operations in Syria in 2014. The Trump administration, like the Obama administration before it, has said the main priority has been to crush the Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate that straddles Syria and Iraq.

The crowded field of foreign participants in Syria are all maneuvering for influence in and around de-escalation zones that Russia and Turkey have sought to establish. One of them is southern Syria, where the United States, Jordan and Israel are eager to prevent Iranian-backed groups, especially Hezbollah, from expanding a foothold.