The Greater Middle East (bbabo.net), - The US military eliminated two "officials" of the ISIS terrorist group during a night raid in eastern Syria. This was reported by the US Central Command (CENTCOM).
Central Command noted:
“…US forces carried out a successful helicopter raid in eastern Syria…and killed two ISIS officials.”
According to the statement, one of those killed was "Anas" - "an official of the Syrian province" of ISIS, who was involved in organizing terrorist attacks in eastern Syria.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights noted that it was the "most visible" operation against ISIS in the past three weeks. The head of the observatory, Rami Abdel Rahman, said that the anti-terrorist unit of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) also took part in the operation in the province of Deir ez-Zor.
The United States supports the SDF, which is seen by some analysts as a de facto full-fledged Kurdish army in northern Syria: it was the SDF units that made a decisive contribution to the defeat of the terrorist group in 2019. As reported by bbabo.net, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that it is Washington that contributes to the growth of separatist sentiment in Syria and prevents a peaceful settlement of the crisis.
Hundreds of US troops remain in Syria as part of an international coalition fighting the remnants of the IS group. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has repeatedly noted that the presence of American forces in Syria is illegal and violates the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Damascus, which Moscow strongly opposes.
Turkey said it had previously targeted Kurdish forces in northern Syria and Iraq after the attack in Istanbul, which it blamed on Kurdish groups. Ankara says it has attacked positions of the Syrian Kurdish YPG, which Ankara considers an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been designated a terrorist organization in Turkey.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier told Russian leader Vladimir Putin that the Kremlin needed to "clear" the border areas in northern Syria of Kurdish forces. The SDF, in turn, warned that the threat of a Turkish ground invasion would jeopardize the fight against the ISIS group.
bbabo.ℵet