The Pentagon has affirmed that U.S. exceptional tasks powers completed a “fruitful” counterterrorism mission in northwest Syria Wednesday, yet gave not many different subtleties.
“U.S. Special Operations forces under the control of U.S. Central Command conducted a counterterrorism mission this evening in northwest Syria. The mission was successful. There were no U.S. casualties,” said John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, in a statement. “More information will be provided as it becomes available.”
One of the helicopters utilized in the mission encountered a mechanical issue and afterward must be exploded on the ground by U.S. powers, as per a U.S. official.
No subtleties were given on who was the objective of the counterterrorism mission or regardless of whether it included ground troops and helicopters as was asserted in a whirlwind of online media reports arising out of Syria on Wednesday night.
Those online media posts detailed conceivable U.S. military movement in Idlib area, a town in far western Syria, near the line with Turkey. A few posts included recordings that appeared to show night scenes where the hints of gunfire and low-flying helicopters could be heard close to the towns of Atimah and Dar Ballout.
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The roughly 1,000 U.S. military soldiers in Syria work in eastern Syria supporting the mission against ISIS.
American soldiers don’t work in government-controlled regions in northwestern Syria, particularly in Idlib territory, which was a radical place of refuge for a significant part of the last ten years. Yet, they have irregularly done counterterrorism missions in Idlib, focusing on different Islamic fanatic gatherings with drone strikes.
The most prominent mission was a ground strike that killed ISIS’ top pioneer, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, who was hanging out in a house near the boundary with Turkey, on Oct. 27, 2019.
