Iraq force accuses US of killing 22 of its fighters in Syria

BAGHDAD, Iraq — An Iraqi paramilitary force Monday accused the United States of killing 22 of its fighters in an overnight air raid just inside Syria’s border with Iraq that a monitor said left dozens dead.

“US planes fired two guided missiles at a fixed position of Hashed al-Shaabi units on the border with Syria, killing 22 fighters and wounding 12,” said the Iran-backed Hashed (Popular Mobilization Units).

It said the raid took place “700 meters (700 yards) inside Syria.”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said earlier that more than 50 fighters allied to the Damascus regime, most of them foreign, were killed in Sunday night’s raid on Al-Hari in eastern Syria.

Syrian state media, citing a military source, accused the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State jihadist group of having carried out the raid.

Several people were killed and wounded, state media said, without giving precise figures.

The coalition’s press office said it had heard reports that a strike in the area of Al-Hari had killed and wounded members of a pro-regime Iraqi group, but denied it was responsible.

“There have been no strikes by US or coalition forces in that area,” it told AFP by email.

IS overran large swaths of Syria and neighboring Iraq in 2014, declaring an Islamic “caliphate” in areas under its control.

Separate offensives have since whittled down the jihadists’ territory in Syria to just a handful of pockets in the eastern desert, including in the Deir Ezzor province where Al-Hari lies.

A US-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters and Russia-supported regime forces are carrying out separate operations against those IS-held pockets.

The two forces have mostly avoided crashing into each other thanks to a deconfliction line that runs across the province along the winding Euphrates River.

Syrian troops are battling IS on the western river bank, while the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces fight on the east.

Iraqi warplanes also have occasionally bombed IS positions in Syria’s east.

Al-Hari lies on the western side, close to the river and the deconfliction line.

The buffer has largely been successful in keeping the two offensives apart, but there have been exceptions.

Last month a dozen pro-regime fighters were killed in an airstrike on Syrian government positions that the Observatory and state media blamed on the coalition.

The Pentagon denied responsibility.