The U.S. military has said it might have mistakenly struck Syrian troops while carrying out an air raid against IS in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour.
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The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said several people were wounded but could not immediately give details about casualties or identify who carried out the strikes.
Russian Federation has accused the US-led coalition in Syria of being on the “boundary between criminal negligence and direct connivance with Islamic State terrorists”. Neither type is listed as being in operation with the RAAF.
The strike comes less than a week into a fragile ceasefire aimed at stopping the bloodshed in Syria’s five-year civil war, as Russian Federation accused what it termed “moderate rebels” of causing the truce to fail.
“The coalition pilots’ actions – if they, as we hope, were not ordered by Washington – were on the edge between gross negligence and direct assistance to Islamic State terrorists”, the ministry’s statement said.
“Straight after the coalition’s strikes, IS militants launched an offensive”, said the statement, adding that “fierce fighting against the terrorists” ensued nearby.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power is expressing regret for the loss of life in a U.S. airstrike in Syria that may have struck Syrian government troops, but is accusing Russian Federation of pulling a “stunt” by calling for an emergency Security Council meeting over the incident.
Power told the press, “Even by Russia’s standards, tonight’s stunt.is uniquely cynical and hypocritical”.
Moscow laid the blame squarely on the opposition after activists reported the strikes. “She was not interested in what I have to say.so there is no point in listening to Ambassador Power”, Churkin said.
The Pentagon said coalition aircraft conducted an airstrike south of Deir ez-Zour that was “halted immediately” after Russian Federation informed the USA -led coalition “that it was possible the personnel and vehicles targeted were part of the Syrian military”.
“We are reaching a really terrifying conclusion for the whole world: That the White House is defending Islamic State”.
The Foreign Ministry has demanded full and detailed explanation from Washington over the incident in Deir al-Zor, in which 62 Syrian troops were killed and over 100 injured.
Syrian opposition activists are reporting the first airstrikes on rebel-held neighborhoods in the northern city of Aleppo since a USA and Russian-brokered truce went into effect.
Yet that ceasefire-aimed at paving the way toward a joint Russia-US air campaign against extremist groups-may already be teetering. IS-linked media also reported the incident.
But the U.S. says the coalition did inform Russian Federation of the forthcoming strike.
Instead, government said the air strike was “a very serious and flagrant aggression” that aided the Islamic State and proved its long-held assertion that the United States supports the jihadist group as part of an effort to oust President Bashar al-Assad.
The news comes as the United States halted its coalition airstrike against the militant group after it accidentally hit the Syrian military.
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“As of Saturday morning, there has been no [delivery] progress”, said David Swanson, an official at the UN’s regional humanitarian affairs office for the Syria crisis.
