US Attacks in Syria Targeted Food Transport Sites

Pentagon claimed sites were storing weapons

Sunday night into Monday, US airstrikes attacked sites along the Syrian border with Iraq. The attacks killed an estimated four fighters, and at least one civilian. They also attacked several commercial and residential sites near the Qaim border crossing.

These sites were, by all indications, commercial depots, mostly responsible for food transport in the area. The Pentagon, however, claimed that they were weapons handling depots. They didn’t offer evidence for that.

There are a lot of militias around Iraq and Syria, and a lot of them probably are storing weapons in places. That does not mean, however, that the sites targeted really were weapons storage.

The US assumed the targeted Iraqi militia amounted to an Iranian proxy, and the food depots amounted to weapons storage, but it is every bit as possible that they are hitting civilian targets, and militias that are only enemies because the US keeps attacking them and calling them Iran.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.