BICOM

The US-backed coalition in Syria said it repelled an attack by Syrian regime forces yesterday, carrying out deadly strikes in a rare confrontation between US and Russian allies.

The clash on Wednesday night occurred in an area near the Euphrates River deconfliction line, which separates pro-Syrian government and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), allied with the US, against the Islamic State militant group.

The US spokesman for the Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve, Colonel Thomas F. Veale, said: “Pro-Syrian government forces had attacked the headquarters of the SDF, a mostly Kurdish militia supported by the US with artillery fire, mortar fire and tanks about five miles east of an agreed boundary near the town of Khusham.”

Media reports suggested that more than 500 pro-regime fighters supported by artillery, tanks, rocket systems and mortars, were advancing towards an SDF military facility where US and UK special forces personnel are based. As many as 100 for the fighters were killed in the attack.

Veale said that “coalition officials were in regular communication with Russian counterparts before, during and after the thwarted PRF [pro-regime forces] attack. Russian officials assured Coalition officials they would not engage Coalition forces in the vicinity”.

Frants Klintsevich, who served as First Deputy Chairman of the defence committee in Moscow’s upper house of Parliament, told Russian state media: “The actions of the US coalition do not comply with legal norms. Beyond all doubt, it is an unprecedented act of aggression.”

The Russian Defence Ministry appeared to partly blame the pro-government militia members for the episode, claiming that the pro-Syrian regime forces were “conducting surveillance and research activities near the Al-Isba oil refinery” before coming under attack.

“The recent incident once again shows that the US’s illegal military presence in Syria is actually aimed at taking control of the country’s economic assets and not at fighting against ISIS,” the Ministry added.

The clash occurred as the Syrian regime continues to bomb the rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta, east of Damascus, with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights tallying 75 civilians dead by yesterday evening.

Also yesterday, gunshots were fired from Syria at an Israeli drone. The shots missed but hit a house in the town of Majdal Shams on the Golan Heights. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said the drone was in Israeli territory.