USA led coalition aircraft hit a Syrian army position in the country’s east on Saturday, an armed forces statement said, while a monitor group reported dozens of soldiers dead.
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Following the increasingly public divide between the U.S State Secretary John Kerry and Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter over the Syria agreement between Russian Federation and the U.S., President Barack Obama gathered top national security aids on Friday including his secretaries of state and defense – with the shaky ceasefire set to dominate a meeting ostensibly about countering DAESH.
The council is set to hold closed consultations later on Friday.
The IS-linked Amaq news agency said coalition strikes hit IS positions, but that the jihadist group was able to “seize full control of Jabal Therdeh, which overlooks the Deir Ezzor airport”.
Earlier today the Russians had to call off US -led airstrikes inside Syria that struck a convoy of Russian-backed Syrian troops.
The allegations come as Moscow and Washington are already at loggerheads over a five-day-old Syrian cease-fire, with each accusing the other of failing to fully implement it.
The U.S. military, in an apparent admission that it may have hit the position, said in a statement that coalition air strikes near Deir al-Zor had been halted when Russian Federation told coalition officials they may have hit the Syrian army.
Britain-based monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 80 soldiers were killed, but could not specify who carried out the raids.
The US military says pilots from the US-led coalition believed they were targeting IS near Dier Ezzour.
A Syrian military spokesman told a briefing early Sunday that the USA airstrike destroyed three tanks, three infantry fighting vehicles, four mortars and an anti-aircraft gun, Russia’s TASS news agency reported.
Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Moscow is using its influence on the Syrian government to make sure the cease-fire holds and wants the United States to do the same with regards to opposition groups.
A US military official in Baghdad said he was looking into the report, which could not be independently corroborated.
Meanwhile, Russia’s deputy foreign minister said the future of Assad is an internal Syrian issue and the US-Russia agreement does not deal with it.
The US-led coalition has been carrying out raids against ISIS for two years in both Syria and Iraq.
The claims Saturday are not the first made against the coalition by Syria’s government, but they come amid an already fragile cease-fire brokered by Russian Federation and the United States.
Diplomats said the International Syria Support Group backing the peace process could meet on Tuesday in NY, on the eve of the council meeting. Churkin, for his part, cast doubt on the American claim that the airstrike was accidental.
The Pentagon said that coalition forces “would not intentionally strike a known Syrian military unit”.
Speaking to reporters in Geneva, OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke said United Nations officials are waiting for assurances that conditions are safe enough for convoys to proceed from Turkey to eastern Aleppo. The official wasn’t authorized to be quoted by name and demanded anonymity.
Even if the USA attack on Syrian forces was an error, Konashenkov said, it was a result of “stubborn reluctance by the American side to coordinate its action against terrorist groups in Syria with Russian Federation”.
IS has repeatedly attacked the government-held air base, which is an isolated enclave deep in extremist-held territory.
Khan Sheikhun, like most of the surrounding province, is controlled by an alliance of rebels, hardline Islamists and jihadists such as the Fateh al-Sham Front, formerly Al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate. An IS advance in Deir el-Zour would endanger the lives of tens of thousands of civilians living in government-held areas.
The US-led coalition has been conducting air strikes against Islamic State since September 2014 and is also supporting rebels against Assad elsewhere in Syria.
The incident will be reviewed by the coalition “to see if any lessons can be learned”, Central Command added.
The truce has been holding despite some violations in different areas, with the Syrian opposition on Thursday reporting 46 ceasefire violations around the country.
However, the United Nations has been unable to deliver aid to the city due to security concerns and refusals by the Syrian government.
A military source said Syria’s army “has carried out its pledge and handed over a number of points to the Russian monitoring teams”, but that rebel groups had not withdrawn from their positions.
Putin said Washington apparently “has the desire to keep the capabilities to fight the lawful government of President Assad”, calling it a “very risky path”. “But this is a very risky route”. Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the leader of the group, condemned the cease-fire agreement in an interview with Al-Jazeera TV aired Saturday.
Russia’s representative to the U.N., Vitaly Churkin, accused the US of violating the cease-fire, and questioned the timing of the USA airstrike in the area.
The Syrian army has returned its troops and arms to the Castello road near the city of Aleppo after coming under rebel fire, the Russian defence ministry said on Friday.
A senior Syrian rebel official in Aleppo said a withdrawal by rebel factions was under debate “because the agreement stipulates that the regime must respect the truce but that did not happen”.
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The Russian military had said that the Syrian army withdrew its armor, artillery and other weapons from a key highway near Aleppo early Thursday, signaling the possible arrival of aid convoys after several days of delay.
