Hezbollah-affiliated media says warplanes from U.S.-led international coalition targeted two Syrian army positions.
05/23/2018
Warplanes from the U.S.-led international coalition targeted two Syrian army positions in the eastern Syrian desert overnight Wednesday, Reuters reported, citing a military media unit run by the Hezbollah group.
The unit, a Damascus ally, said the strikes took place near T2, an energy installation located near the border with Iraq and about 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of the Euphrates river where the coalition is backing ground forces against Islamic State (ISIS).
A spokesman for the coalition could not be immediately reached by phone and Syrian state media did not immediately report the strikes.
In April, the United States, Britain, and France attacked eight pre-selected targets in Syria. The strikes came in response to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons against civilians in Douma.
Later in April, seven Iranian personnel were killed in an early morning strike on the T-4 airbase in Homs. Iran accused Israel of being behind that air strike, as did the Syrian regime and Russia.
Eastern Syria was mostly held by ISIS until last year, when two rival campaigns, one by the Syrian army backed by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, the other by Kurdish and Arab militias backed by the U.S. coalition, took most of its land.
Communication between Russia and the United States averted most clashes between them. However, the coalition has struck Syrian pro-government forces that it said were attempting to attack coalition positions, noted Reuters.
One such incident came last June, when the coalition brought down a Syrian army aircraftin southern Raqa.
The U.S. military later confirmed that the coalition had shot down a Syrian military aircraft, saying the plane was downed “in collective self-defense of Coalition-partnered forces.”