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Syria state media says US-led coalition hit regime position in east
DAMASCUS, June 18, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Syrian state media said overnight
Sunday to Monday that US-led coalition aircraft had carried out a deadly
strike on a regime position in the country’s east near the Iraqi border.
Both US-backed Kurdish-led fighters and Russia-supported regime forces are
separately fighting the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria’s eastern
province of Deir Ezzor.
“Aircraft of the American coalition bombarded one of our military positions
in the area of al-Hari southeast of Albu Kamal” town in Deir Ezzor, state
news agency SANA reported a military source as saying, adding a number of
people had been killed.
IS overran large swathes of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, declaring
a “caliphate” in areas they controlled.
But the jihadists have since lost most of that territory, in Syria seeing
their presence largely reduced to the country’s vast desert and a few
villages near the frontier with Iraq.
In the oil-rich province of Deir Ezzor, the US-backed Syrian Democratic
Forces and Syrian government forces have carried out parallel but separate
offensives against IS.
Regime forces control land west of the Euphrates River that runs through
the province, while the SDF are battling to expel IS from a string of
villages on the river’s eastern banks near the Iraqi border.
Both sides have mostly avoided running into each other and a deconfliction
line exists to avoid such incidents.
But there have been exceptions.
In April, rare clashes broke out between both sides, killing more than a
dozen combatants.
In February, the US-led coalition backing the SDF carried out air strikes
in Deir Ezzor province that killed at least 100 pro-regime fighters.
Washington said the strikes were in retaliation for an attack on its own
personnel and SDF forces.
BSS/AFP/MSY/0804 hrs