BEIRUT (AP) – Syria’s government on Monday accused the U.S.-led coalition of launching airstrikes on a Syrian army camp in the country’s east that killed three soldiers and wounded 13 and sent a protest letter to the U.N. over the incident.
The U.S. denied the claim, saying the alliance carried out four airstrikes against oil wells in the province – all of them miles away from the alleged location of the incident.
The city of Deir el-Zour, where the purported strikes happened Sunday, is mainly held by the Islamic State group, but the Syrian government maintains a presence in some parts of it. A U.S.-led coalition has been striking at IS targets in Syria for the past year. France and the United Kingdom have recently joined in and have carried out airstrikes of their own in Syria.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the Syrian conflict through a network of activists on the ground, also reported the airstrikes and gave a death toll similar to the Syrian government. According to the Observatory, in Syria’s overcrowded skies, the aircraft behind the incident in Deir el-Zour are “believed” to belong to the anti-IS coalition targeted.
The planes hit the camp known as “Sa’iqa,”the Observatory said, though it gave a slightly different account for its location, saying the camp is near the village of Ayyash in the western countryside of Deir el-Zour.