DAMASCUS: An airstrike near a US base in southeastern Syria has killed at least eight pro-regime fighters, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Monday.
Four Syrians, one Iranian national and three other non-Syrian fighters were killed in the strike carried out on Saturday, the Britain-based war monitor said.
At least 11 people were wounded in the attack, according to Observatory figures.
“A convoy of Iranian forces and allied militia was hit by airstrikes as it drove near Al-Tanf base,” the monitor’s head Rami Abdel Rahman said.
He could not confirm the strike had been conducted by the US-led coalition present in the region.
A coalition spokesman said the Al-Tanf base “received fire from unknown forces, with no damage and the coalition forces did not fire back.”
Several strikes against Syrian regime or allied forces have in the past been attributed to US forces, which were deployed with the declared goal of fighting Daesh.
The base, set up in 2016 near the borders with Iraq and Jordan, was also used for the training of so-called “vetted opposition” to the regime of President Bashar Assad.
Despite a 55-km deconfliction zone around the base, Al-Tanf is seen as a potential flashpoint between US and Iranian or Tehran-backed forces.
The presence of a US base in the arid border region has been a source of tension and its dismantling is often cited as a key demand by Damascus and its allies.
Beyond the battle against terrorists in their nearby desert hideouts, analysts say Washington sees the base as disrupting Iranian efforts to open a east-west land corridor from Tehran to Lebanon.
Airstrike near US base in southeastern Syria kills 8 pro-Assad fighters
Airstrike near US base in southeastern Syria kills 8 pro-Assad fighters
- Several strikes against Syrian regime or allied forces have in the past been attributed to US forces, which were deployed with the declared goal of fighting Daesh
Israel agrees to ‘limited reopening’ of Rafah crossing: PM’s office
- The announcement came after visiting US envoys reportedly pressed Israeli officials to reopen the crossing, a vital entry point for aid into Gaza
JERUSALEM: Israel said Monday it would allow a “limited reopening” of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt once it had recovered the remains of the last hostage in the Palestinian territory.
The announcement came after visiting US envoys reportedly pressed Israeli officials to reopen the crossing, a vital entry point for aid into Gaza.
Reopening Rafah forms part of a Gaza truce framework announced by US President Donald Trump in October, but the crossing has remained closed after Israeli forces took control of it during the war.
The Israeli military also said it was searching a cemetery in the Gaza Strip on Sunday for the remains of the last hostage, Ran Gvili, a non-commissioned officer in the police’s elite Yassam unit.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the reopening would depend on “the return of all living hostages and a 100 percent effort by Hamas to locate and return all deceased hostages,” Netanyahu’s office said on X.
It said Israel’s military was “currently conducting a focused operation to exhaust all of the intelligence that has been gathered in the effort to locate and return” Gvili’s body.
“Upon completion of this operation, and in accordance with what has been agreed upon with the US, Israel will open the Rafah Crossing,” it said.
