US Admits Killing Pentagon-Trained Rebels in Syria
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The US military bombed a Syrian rebel unit it had trained and equipped to purportedly battle Daesh (also known as ISIL and ISIS) in a friendly-fire incident in late May.
The military didn’t disclose the incident until asked about it by The Wall Street Journal.
It is the most serious setback to date for the Pentagon’s recent efforts to work with the insurgents in northern Syria. The Pentagon said it conducted a series of airstrikes in and around the Syrian town of Ma’ra on May 27 and May 28. The Pentagon-backed Mutasim Brigade said one of the airstrikes hit the brigade.
A statement issued by the US military at the time said three strikes were carried out near Ma’ra that reportedly “struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed two ISIL tactical vehicles and an ISIL vehicle.”
But leaders with the brigade in interviews said a US airstrike hit brigade members while they were reportedly fighting the Takfiri Daesh militants. Mustafa Sejry, the head of Mutasim’s political office, said 10 of the brigade’s militants were killed in the US strike.
A spokesman for the US military’s Central Command acknowledged the incident, saying in a written statement that the US military had launched an investigation.
Daesh terrorists, who were among the militants initially trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the Syrian government, now control parts of Iraq and Syria. They are engaged in heinous crimes against humanity in territories under their control.
