A Russian Su-24 strike aircraft in the sky over the Khmeimim airbase in Syria. Photo: Dmitriy Vinogradov / RIA Novosti
Su-24M fighter bombers of the Russian Aerospace Forces have carried out a series of airstrikes against militants operating near the United States-led coalition garrison in the southeastern Syrian area of al-Tanf.
Video footage of the airstrikes surfaced on Twitter on June 22. However, it is still unclear when exactly they took place. The airstrikes reportedly targeted militants who were trained by the coalition at al-Tanf garrison.
Around 200 U.S. troops are usually deployed at al-Tanf garrison, along with hundreds of militants from a proxy group known as the Syrian Free Army. The coalition maintains a 55-kilometer no-fly zone around al-Tanf. Despite this, Russian fighter jets conducted dozens of armed patrols over the garrison in the last few months, likely to monitor suspicious activities there.
Last month, Sergey Naryshkin, director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, accused the U.S. of training ISIS terrorists in the garrison on sabotage.
“According to our information, the U.S. al-Tanf military base located on the border of Syria, Jordan and Iraq is used to train ISIS militants for carrying out subversive acts; moreover, not only on Syrian territory but also in Russian regions,” the intelligence chief said at an international meeting of high-level security representatives, according to TASS.
Alexander Lavrentiev, the Russian president’s special envoy for Syria, said on June 21, according to the RIA news agency, that the U.S. was strengthening its military contingent in Syria, especially in al-Tanf.
“There is such information… that the U.S. is strengthening its military contingent in northeastern Syria, as well as in Al-Tanf, which has been illegally occupied by them for quite a long time,” Lavrentiev was cited as saying.
The U.S. claims that its troops are present in al-Tanf to counter ISIS. However, the last reported operation by the coalition against the terrorist group’s cells in the area was years ago. In reality, the garrison blocks a strategic road linking the Syrian capital, Damascus, with Baghdad, the capital of neighboring Iraq.
In addition, the garrison is reportedly being used as an outpost to collect intelligence, stage sabotage acts and facilitate Israeli strikes against Syria.
Russian warplanes attacked militants in al-Tanf, including U.S. proxies, on several occasions in the last few years. The U.S. never attempted to stop the attacks or responded, likely to avoid a costly and dangerous confrontation with the Russian military group in Syria.
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