The deadliest strike on Syria in terms of casualties was carried out by Israel on November 20, with American military complicity. Most of the dead were officers and soldiers in the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), the only national army in Syria.
Israel struck the Industrial School and the western residential area near the bakery in Palmyra, the city best known for its Roman-era antiquities and a UNESCO World Heritage site in the central desert, and under the administration of President Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights in the UK, 82 persons were killed when the Israeli jets bombarded Palmyra after being launched from within the airspace of the illegal US military base, Al-Tanf, in eastern Syria. Locals reported numerous ambulances transported the wounded to Tadmur National Hospital.
Al-Tanf base is an area near the Iraqi border, illegally occupied by the US military, and is approximately 218 kilometers from where Israel struck in Palmyra on Wednesday. Earlier this month, troops from the SAA foiled an ISIS ambush that originated from the area in the vicinity of the US military base.
According to detailed reports over the last couple of years, ISIS and other Radical Islamic terrorist groups have received training inside the Al-Tanf base. They are given logistical support to carry out attacks against the SAA in the desert region.
Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria since 2011 targeting the SAA. Israel claims many of their targets in Syria are linked to Iran and Hezbollah, the Lebanese resistance organization. Following the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas, the strikes on Syria have intensified. Last week, Israel carried out attacks in the Homs province bordering Lebanon.
Syria and Iran have accused the US and Israel of arming and giving medical attention to ISIS while using them to attack the SAA and Hezbollah.
The US troops occupying Syria use ISIS sleeper cells when needed, and are operating out of the US base in Al Tanf. Because the US force is so small in Syria, they rely on local mercenaries the US has trained, weaponized, and paid to provide security to the illegal base.
The mercenaries are Mugawir al-Thawra, a group of Syrian men following the same Radical Islam ideology as ISIS, Al Qaeda, Jibhat al-Nusra, and the Muslim Brotherhood. Although their paychecks are cut at the Pentagon, that doesn’t change their ideology. The US military uses what assets they have at hand, and terrorists are rebels against the central government.
In late 2015, a small force of 50 American troops arrived in northeast Syria to defeat ISIS. The US claims the US coalition defeated ISIS; however, it was the US, the SAA, Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah all fighting ISIS which contributed to the defeat of ISIS. ISIS was finally defeated in early 2019.
The US chose not to partner with the SAA, Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah who had the biggest fighting force on the ground against ISIS. Instead, a political decision was taken to train, weaponize, and pay a Communist separatist group in Syria, the Kurds, which has about 225,000 fighters.
The US choice to militarily and politically support a Kurdish separatist group, linked to the PKK, angered President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. The PKK is an internationally banned terrorist group which have killed over 30,000 people over three decades. The PKK is the biggest enemy and security threat to Turkey, which shares a long border with Syria and is near the US-sponsored Kurdish militias, the SDF and YPJ.
For years, Turkey has asked the US to stop their partnership and support of the Kurdish separatists in Syria. Although Turkey and the US are members of NATO and have been close allies for decades, Washington has insisted on supporting the Kurdish separatists in Syria.
On November 21, Turkish Foreign Minister, Hakan Fidan, stated that the essential elements of Turkey’s policy toward Syria include purging the country of terrorist elements. He referred to the SDF and YPJ and their links to the PKK, and called for continuing the war against a “separatist terrorist organization.”
The Kurdish Communists occupy the northeastern region of Syria in what they call The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). Recently, they began conducting non-declared municipal elections in Deir Ezzor province, one more step toward declaring an independent state.
The Kurdish-occupied area is where the biggest producing oil and gas wells are in Syria, with the US military in charge of the production capacity, which they sell in Erbil, the Kurdish area in Iraq. By the US preventing Damascus from their oil, the Syrian people are left with three hours of electricity per day, and limited gasoline.
Palmyra was seized by ISIS in May 2015, and partially destroyed, before it was recaptured by the Syrian army. ISIS regained control of the city in December 2016, and three months later the SAA retook the town.
US President Donald Trump ordered the withdrawal of US forces from Syria in December 2018 but was prevented by following through. Again, in October 2019 he ordered the troops to come home, and again the ‘Deep State’ prevented his order from fulfillment, but the troop size was cut from 2,500 to 900.
Presently, ISIS does not exist in Syria, other than small bands of sleeper cells that can be used as assets by the US. The US Central Command recently made a show of launching three rounds of heavy strikes on what they claimed were ISIS training camps in Syria. This was staged to demonstrate the need for US troops in Syria.
Charles Lister, a Senior Fellow and the Director of Syria and Countering Terrorism & Extremism programs at the Middle East Institute, recently wrote, “US troops are the glue holding together the only meaningful challenge to an ISIS resurgence.”
Lister makes the case for continued US military occupation in Syria. Not surprisingly, he explains the American presence is not about fighting terrorism, but instead wrote, “Our presence in a quarter of Syria’s territory creates significant geopolitical leverage for the US in the region and presents a counterweight to American adversaries.
The threat of an ISIS resurgence only exists as an excuse to keep the US in Syria. Staged events demonstrate the danger, which is not real but provides a cover story for a political objective.
US forces played an instrumental role in training and equipping 225,000 security force partners to challenge ISIS and hold liberated territory.
According to an interview with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. by Tucker Carlson on November 6, Trump said, “Get them out!” referring to the US forces in Syria.
Trump tried twice to get them out, and he may view the move as part of his campaign to seek out and remove the “Deep State” who hampered his previous term in office.
The US support of the Kurds has cost billions, and it is hard to convince Republicans that a Communist state in Syria should be on the US payroll. Trump has said he wants to end all wars. By decoupling from the Kurds in Syria, Trump can repair the US-Turkish relationship, and this will have positive benefits for the Syrian people.
If Syrian oil is controlled by Damascus, hospitals, schools, universities, and other infrastructure can be rebuilt. The electric grid can be repaired and citizens can begin to have refrigerators that are cold and prevent food poisoning, and hospitals can depend on the constant use of medical machines such as dialysis.
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This article was originally published on Profile Newa.
Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image is from Mideast Discourse
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