U.S. denies role in airstrike along Iraq-Syria border

BEIRUT — Iraqi Shiite forces and Syria accused the United States on Monday of targeting their troops inside Syria with an airstrike, a charge the U.S. denied but that ratcheted up tensions in the area.

Iraq’s Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces, the units’ umbrella organization, said in a statement that U.S. aircraft late Sunday night fired two missiles that hit a group of its fighters deployed along the Iraq-Syria border to prevent breaches by the Islamic State group. The statement said the attack left 22 fighters dead and 12 wounded, adding that Iraqi and Syrian authorities were aware of their deployment.

U.S. military spokesman Col. Sean Ryan said the coalition was looking into the reports.

“We are aware of the strike near Boukamal, however there have been no strikes by U.S. or coalition forces in that area,” he said. “We’re looking into who that could possibly be, but it wasn’t the U.S. or the coalition.”

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said the airstrike killed 52 foreign fighters allied with the Syrian government, mostly Iraqis.

Syrian and Iraqi forces have driven Islamic State from virtually all the territory it once held in both countries, but the militants still control some remote areas along the border.

Meanwhile in the country’s north, a deal reached between Turkey and the U.S. to have Kurdish forces withdraw from a town appears to have gone into effect. Turkey announced its troops have begun patrols on the outskirts of the key northern Syrian town of Manbij.