Raid on pro-Iran militia convoy in east Syria kills at least 14: monitor
Fuel tankers and trucks loaded with weapons hit in Albu Kamal area
BEIRUT: A strike on a pro-Iran militia convoy in eastern Syria near the Iraqi border killed at least 14 people overnight, a war monitor said on Wednesday, without specifying who carried it out.
The attack hit a convoy of “fuel tankers and trucks loaded with weapons,” in the the Albu Kamal area of the border, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The US-led coalition told reporters in Iraq that it had no involvement in the raid.
An official of the Iraqi border guard said the trucks were transporting fuel from Iran to Lebanon overland through Iraq and Syria.
He said the convoy consisted of 22 tanker trucks, of which 10 were hit after entering Syrian territory through the Al-Qaim - Albu Kamal border crossing. Four trucks were “completely burnt”, he added.
The Britain-based Observatory said at least 14 people were killed in the strike. It said a nearby militia position was also hit.
Contacted by AFP, a spokeswoman for the US-led coalition fighting the remnants of the Daesh terror group in Iraq and Syria said that the strike was not carried out by the United States or any other coalition country.
Pro-Iran militias have a major presence around the Iraq-Syria border and are heavily deployed south and west of the Euphrates in Syria’s Deir Ezzor province.