DAMASCUS (Dispatches) – American warplanes have conducted an airstrike in Syria’s eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr, only a few days after the U.S. military used dozens of tanker trucks to smuggle crude oil from the neighboring province of Hasakah to bases in Iraq.
The U.S. military’s Central Command said in a statement that the aerial assault was aimed at what it called protecting U.S. forces from attacks, and targeted military infrastructure facilities run by Syrian government forces and their allies.
It cited one such incident on August 15, when armed unmanned aerial vehicles struck the vicinity of al-Tanf base in southeastern Syria near the borders with Jordan and Iraq, where American occupation troops and the U.S.-backed and so-called Maghawir al-Thawra terrorists are stationed.
The statement about Tuesday’s U.S. strike did not mention whether there were any casualties.
On June 26, the U.S. military said in a statement it targeted operational and weapons storage facilities at two locations in Syria and one location in Iraq.
It did not say whether there were any casualties, but the Britain-based and so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least five people were killed and several others wounded.
Syria’s official SANA news agency said one child was killed and at least three other people were wounded.
Earlier this year, at least 13 people, including six children, were killed during a raid carried out by United States special operations forces in Syria’s northern province of Idlib.
Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry said the country’s fighter jets have carried out a series of airstrikes on positions of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) terrorist outfit in Syria’s northwestern province f Idlib, after the extremists shelled residential neighborhoods in the area.
Deputy head of the Russian Reconciliation Center for Syria Major General Oleg Yegorov said the air attacks destroyed a camp of the terrorists involved in the recent rocket attacks against Khan Shaykhun town and the city of Saraqib.
He added that the communications center, operations room and an ammunition depot of the militants were destroyed as a result.
The development came less than a week after the center announced that it had received information that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham terrorists together with representatives of the pseudo-humanitarian organization White Helmets were preparing to record a staged attack video in Ariha town and Jisr ash-Shughur city of Idlib province to accuse the Russian Aerospace Forces and Syrian government troops of indiscriminate strikes on civilian infrastructure and residential areas.