The Pentagon said Thursday that three US troops are being examined for traumatic brain injuries after an attack on a US base in Syria that came as the US was backing a Kurdish-led offensive against government-controlled villages.
US Central Command said it launched airstrikes on Tuesday in eastern Syria in response to an attack on a US base and said it destroyed multiple trucks with rocket launcher systems and a T-64 battle tank.
CENTCOM framed the strikes as “self-defense,” leaving out the context that the US base came under attack while the US was backing an SDF offensive with artillery fire.
According to Al-Monitor, the offensive was led by the Deir Ezzor Military Council, a militia that falls under the SDF, and the US was supporting them as they “attempted to seize control of a series of villages occupied by pro-Assad forces just a few kilometers from the US base.”
The Al-Monitor report noted that the US-backed forces were taking advantage of the offensive launched by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an al-Qaeda offshoot, against the Syrian government in the northwest.
The report said the HTS offensive offered the US a “narrow opportunity to beef up control of Syria’s oil-rich region before more Iranian-aligned reinforcements flow into the country to bolster the Assad regime — and before US President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.”
