Illustrative image.
Russian fighter jets have reportedly carried out a series of airstrikes against a group of saboteurs near the United States-led coalition garrison in the southeastern Syrian area of al-Tanf.
News sources, which shared video footage of the airstrikes on social media on November 16, said that the saboteurs were preparing “terrorist attacks” in southern and central Syria.
The activities of saboteurs near al-Tanf garrison increased after the start of the war in the Gaza Strip on October 7, according to the sources.
Around 200 U.S. troops are usually deployed at al-Tanf, 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 conduct armed patrols over the garrison on a regular basis.
Al-Tanf garrison was targeted with suicide drones at least five times in recent weeks. 20 U.S. troops were wounded in one of the attacks. A coalition of Iranian-backed armed groups known as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq carried out the attacks in response to the Israeli war on Gaza.
The U.S. claims that its troops are present in al-Tanf to counter ISIS. However, the real purpose of the garrison is to block a strategic highway that links Damascus with the Iraqi capital, Baghdada. In addition, the garrison is reportedly being used as an outpost to collect intelligence, stage sabotage acts and facilitate Israeli strikes against Syria.
Tensions were already high around al-Tanf before the war broke out in Gaza. In May, Sergey Naryshkin, director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, accused the U.S. of training ISIS terrorists in al-Tanf on sabotage. Later in June, Alexander Lavrentiev, the Russian president’s special envoy for Syria, said that the coalition was strengthening its military contingent in the garrison and other parts of Syria.
Additionally, several waves of Russian and Syrian airstrikes targeted the garrison and nearby areas between July and August.
