Russia is behind a “series” of recent operations against US forces in Syria this month, including Wednesday’s attack on the al-Tanf garrison in the country’s southeast, the Wall Street Journal has reported, citing Pentagon officials familiar with the matter.
A source told the newspaper that Russian jets hit “a combat outpost at the garrison” on Wednesday after informing the US of an imminent strike responding to an attack by CIA-trained militants against Syrian troops which destroyed a vehicle and may have caused injuries.
WSJ characterized the 15 June strike, in which no US troops were harmed, as a “message” from Moscow that while it “wasn’t actively targeting American troops,” it was “harassing the US mission in Syria – a tactic that Russian forces have previously used.”
An unnamed official called the al-Tanf strike a “significant increase in provocation.”
The US has about 200 troops stationed at the al-Tanf garrison, which is situated near Syria’s border with Iraq and Jordan. Washington claims the troops are engaged in the training of “rebel forces.” Syrian, Russian and Iranian authorities have long accused the US of using the facility to provide training for “ex-jihadists,” including Daesh (ISIS)* remnants and foreign militants illegally operating in the country.
Last month, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service revealed that the al-Tanf facility had been turned into a terrorist hub where militants were being trained for deployment in Ukraine, with the operation including training in the use of anti-tank missiles, reconnaissance and strike drones, and advanced communications and surveillance gear.
WSJ’s sources claimed Russia had also deployed a pair of Su-34 fighters to an area in northeast Syria this month where US forces were conducting a counterterrorism operation. The jets supposedly left the area after the US sent up its own jets.
In a statement, US Central Command Chief General Eric Kurila called Russia’s “recent behaviour” “provocative and escalatory,” but assured that it remains the US’s goal to “avoid miscalculation or a set of actions that could lead to unnecessary conflict.”
Russian officials and the Ministry of Defence have not commented on the WSJ’s reporting.
The US occupies wide swathes of Syrian territory, including at-Tanf in the south and energy and food-rich areas in the country’s north and north east, including much of the provinces of Deir ez-Zor, al-Hasakah and Raqqa.
Damascus has repeatedly requested that all foreign forces illegally stationed in the country leave immediately, and has called on the international community to condemn the US, Turkish and Israeli occupation of the war-torn country.
Syrian media regularly reports on the smuggling of oil and food supplies out of the country by coalition forces, and the bringing of troops and military equipment in. Unlike Donald Trump, who openly admitted that US forces were in Syria to “keep the oil,” President Biden and his administration have kept largely silent on US activities in the Middle Eastern nation, except to claim that US forces were there to stop resurgence of Daesh.
US forces in northeastern Syria operate in collaboration with local US-backed Kurdish militias - the Syrian Democratic Forces. The US contingent in the country is relatively small, and depends on the threat of disproportionate violence against Syrian forces, including air and missile strikes, if they attempt to engage American forces directly. In the meantime, Syrian troops and civilians in the conflict zone have sought to make US forces’ lives as difficult as possible, including by setting up block posts or barricades to prevent US convoys from passing through, and other forms of peaceful resistance.
* A terrorist group outlawed in Russia and many other countries.