U.S.-led coalition hits Syrian army positions: Hezbollah

BEIRUT , LEBANON -Warplanes from the U.S.-led coalition targeted two Syrian army positions in the eastern Syrian desert, a military media unit run by Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said early on Thursday.

The unit, a Damascus ally, said the strikes took place near T2, an energy installation located near the border with Iraq and about 100 km (60 miles) west of the Euphrates river where the coalition is backing ground forces against Islamic State.

A spokesman for the coalition could not be immediately reached by phone and Syrian state media did not immediately report the strikes.

U.S.-led coalition hits Syrian army positions: Hezbollah media unit https://t.co/0J8YxWvj9i

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Eastern Syria was mostly held by Islamic State until last year, when two rival campaigns, one by the Syrian army backed by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, the other by Kurdish and Arab militias backed by the U.S. coalition, took most of its land.

Communication between Russia and the United States averted most clashes between them. However, the coalition has struck Syrian pro-government forces that it said were attempting to attack coalition positions.

The U.S. military operating outside the coalition also maintains a base at Tanf in the eastern Syrian desert near the borders with Iraq and Jordan and last year struck pro-government forces moving along a road toward it.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported two waves of U.S.-led missile attacks early Thursday it said targeted areas controlled by IS east of the Euphrates River.

If confirmed, the attacks would be the first by the U.S. on Syrian army positions since April, when the U.S., Britain and France bombed government facilities in retaliation for a suspected gas attack blamed on Syria’s government.

REUTERS