ISIS hits US-backed Syrian rebel base near Iraqi border

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Islamic State suicide bombers on Sunday attacked a military base for US-backed fighters near the Syrian-Iraqi border. At least one fighter was killed and several wounded on the base before attackers blew themselves up, both rebel sources and the terrorists said.

At least one explosive-laden vehicle was used in an attempt to ram through the gate of the heavily defended base, near the Syrian al-Tanf border crossing with Iraq. The base was set up by the fledgling, Pentagon-trained New Syria Army.

Large sand barriers have been erected to prevent such incursions in the area where hit-and-run attacks are common.

One rebel said those barriers prevented attackers from successfully storming the heavily-fortified compound.

“It’s a well-defended camp and they tried to storm it, but the suicide vehicle was targeted and hit,” said Said Seif al-Qalamoni, a rebel familiar with the area. Soon after the attack, Qalamoni said US-led coalition jets struck several vehicles in the sparsely populated desert area, which they believed to be driven by the terrorists.

Amaq, an ISIS-affiliated news agency, said two suicide bombers attacked the camp and detonated an explosive-laden car before they stormed the compound and exploded their suicide vests.

The New Syria Army was formed around 18 months ago, at the height of Islamic State’s rapid expansion, using insurgents driven from eastern Syria.

Diplomats and rebel sources say US Special Forces are training hundreds of fighters from the group in camps in Jordan.

Coalition forces last year ousted Islamist fighters from the area, some 240 km. from Syria’s ancient city of Palmyra.

Scores of ISIS fighters moved south to southern Syria and the Tanf area after being driven out of Palmyra in central Syria this year.

The terrorists control an area stretching from Iraq to central Syria and still control the al-Bukamal Syria-Iraq border crossing near Deir al-Zour.

The New Syria Army, with the backing of Western special forces and US-led air strikes, launched an attack last June from the base on al-Bukamal northeast of Tanf.

But the operation aimed to capture the town and cut the group’s supply lines between Syria and Iraq, but failed after rebels were encircled on the approaches of the town by jihadists mounting a counter-attack.

The New Syria Army’s base in Tanf has been hit twice by Russian air strikes, even after the US military used emergency channels to ask Moscow to stop after the first strike, US officials say.