US-Backed Kurdish Forces Attack East Syrian Villages

Intense clashes as US artillery shells village of Khasham

The Syrian Civil War and its various fronts continue to re-escalate today with the Kurdish SDF attacking, and temporarily claiming they had captured seven villages in the eastern Deir Ezzor Province. The villages are along the path between the provincial capital and the Abu Kamal border crossing with Iraq.

The villages didn’t ultimately remain in the SDF’s hands, with the Syrian Army reporting that they had repelled them after intense fighting. The decision of the SDF to attack in the first place does not appear to have been entirely their own, however.

The US not only supported the SDF attack, but according to al-Mayadeen the US military actually “instructed” the SDF’s Deir Ezzor Military Council to attack those specific villages, meant to take advantage of the recent territory losses and fighting further west between Syrian forces and the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

US involvement in the attacks didn’t end there. The US provided artillery support, firing artillery out of the Conoco outpost, which is near oil fields. The US shelled the village of Khasham, hitting it with at least 12 shells.

US officials confirmed carrying out strikes in eastern Syria, hitting a tank and other targets. They claimed a rocket hit somewhere near their position and that Syrian military assets “presented a clear and imminent threat” to US forces.

Other US officials suggested that the SDF had requested US military support and they were “supporting them.” They denied this had anything to do with the HTS offensive in the northwest, and insisted that the attacks were not outside their normal mission, adding that the US is “there to defeat ISIS.” The attacks were against Syrian military targets, not ISIS.

The SDF is trying to downplay the US involvement in these attacks, arguing that after the Russian troops had deployed away from Syrian government-controlled villages, they were vulnerable to potential ISIS attack. The SDF also claimed that they felt responsible for “protecting” the villages, by which they meant attacking them.

The HTS launched an offensive against Syrian government territory last Wednesday, and has seized considerable territory, including the major northern city of Aleppo. They have also continued to move south, capturing towns and villages that are putting them within 5 miles of the city of Hama.

The HTS offensive is being participated in by Turkish-backed rebels, and Israeli sources have reported direct contact with the HTS, which is seeking equipment to back their attacks. Their goal is regime change, and it seems like the US has decided this restart of the conflict is an opportunity for their own proxies to seize more territory in the east.

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.