Dozens dead in US-led strike on Syrian army

IS advances • US forces deploy to Syria to back Turkey

DAMASCUS: US-led coalition aircraft hit a Syrian army position in the country’s east yesterday, an armed forces statement said, while a monitor group reported dozens of soldiers dead. “Warplanes from the American coalition hit one of the Syrian army’s positions... near the Deir Ezzor airport,” the statement carried by state media said. It said the raid was carried out at 5:00 pm local time (1400 GMT) and led to an unspecified number of “casualties”.

Regime ally Russia said 62 Syrian soldiers were killed and at least 100 more wounded in strikes by “warplanes from the international anti-jihadist coalition”. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said at least 80 soldiers were killed in the raids on Jabal Therdeh, southwest of the Deir Ezzor airport, updating an earlier toll of 30 killed. Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said he could not specify who carried out the strikes.

Syria’s army has been fighting off a fierce offensive by the Islamic State group on the Deir Ezzor military airport since last year. “This is a dangerous and bold attack against the Syrian state and army, and clear evidence that the United States and its allies support the terrorist group Daesh,” the statement said, using an Arabic acronym for IS. It said the raids had allowed IS to advance on Syrian troops in the area.

The Russian military said two F-16 and two A-10 jets flew into Syrian airspace from neighboring Iraq to carry out the strikes. “Straight after the coalition’s strikes, IS militants launched an offensive,” said the statement, adding that “fierce fighting against the terrorists” ensued nearby. “If these strikes were due to an error in the target coordinates, that would be a direct consequence of the US’ refusal to coordinate with Russia its fight against the terrorist groups in Syria,” it said.

The IS-linked Amaq news agency said late yesterday IS jihadists were able to “seize full control of Jabal Therdeh, which overlooks the Deir Ezzor airport”. A Syrian military source also told AFP that US-led coalition strikes hit an army position in Jabal Therdeh. Under a fragile truce deal negotiated by the United States and Russia, fighting in Syria is to halt on all fronts across the country except those held by IS. The US-led coalition has been carrying out raids against IS for two years in both Syria and Iraq.

Meanwhile, dozens of US Special Operations commandos have been deployed to northern Syria to help Turkey and “vetted” Syrian rebels fight IS, the Pentagon confirmed Friday. But as footage emerged of the rebels hurling insults and threats at the American special operators, US officials were forced to play down reports that the troops did not receive a warm welcome to the frontline.

Last month, Ankara launched an offensive into northern Syria dubbed “Euphrates Shield”, ostensibly designed to cut a major IS group supply line but also to counter the advance of US-backed a Kurdish militia. US forces are working alongside the Syrian Kurds of the YPG in the fight against the Islamic State, but Turkey regards the group as terrorists and allies of the PKK separatist group fighting within its own borders.

In Syria, Turkey prefers to work with Arab and Turkmen fighters such as those of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which is opposed to Syrian leader Bashar Al-Assad’s regime but has also clashed with the Kurds in the past. Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis told reporters that US commandos, at Turkey’s request, had joined the Turkish military and “vetted Syrian opposition forces” fighting the Islamic State group near Jarabulus and Al Rai.

But footage widely shared online by Syrian groups and experts appears to show US commandos in Al Rai insulted by FSA fighters, who call them “pigs” and “infidels” in Arabic, demanding they leave Syria. A US defense official admitted there had been a “misunderstanding,” but insisted the troops were still deployed and that the matter had been cleared up. “There’s been no violence, no one is hurt and we are still there,” the official said. “I have no report of a hostile or violent action.” The special forces contingent includes several dozen troops, he added.

America’s top general, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford, met with his Turkish counterpart General Hulusi Akar on the sidelines of a NATO chiefs of staff meeting in Croatia on Friday to discuss the anti-IS group fight. His assistant, Captain Gregory Hicks, said the generals met “to advance discussions on the way forward in the fight against ISIL, and recommitted to the close military-to-military and strategic relationship the US has with Turkey.”

Meanwhile, in another incident underlining the fourway tensions between Kurds, Turks, Americans and Syrian Arabs on the battlefield, Kurdish YPG fighters again flew US flags near Syria’s border with Turkey. An AFP photographer saw the stars and stripes flying over a YPG base in Tal Abyad. The use of US flags is seen as a provocation by some in Turkey and the Pentagon repeated its request for them to be taken down. “We would call on our partner forces not to fly the American flag on their own,” Cook said. “I would imagine that that would be communicated if indeed that’s taken place in this instance.”

There was some good news for the coalition, however. Cook said that senior Islamic State propagandist Wa’il Adil Hasan Salman Al-Fayad, known as “Dr Wa’il,” was killed in a precision strike on Sept 7 near Raqqa, the Syrian city that is the group’s de facto capital. — Agencies