Beirut, Lebanon–Air strikes destroyed a convoy of trucks that crossed into eastern Syria from Iraq on Sunday, a war monitor said, reporting an unspecified number of casualties.
“Six refrigerated trucks were the target of strikes by unidentified aircraft in the Albu Kamal border region after they crossed into Syrian territory from Iraq,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The strikes destroyed the convoy, killing or injuring those on board, the Observatory added, without providing a specific number of casualties.
“The trucks were transporting Iranian weapons,” Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
Tehran provides military support to its ally Damascus in Syria’s civil war, including through armed factions.
The Observatory, which relies on a vast network of sources in the war-torn country, said at least two similar convoys had entered Syria from Iraq this week, offloading their cargo to pro-Iran groups in the eastern town of Al-Mayadeen.
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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.
Both Albu Kamal and Al-Mayadeen are in Deir Ezzor, and Albu Kamal has seen similar strikes in the past.
The Observatory said in November that a strike in the area hit a pro-Iran militia convoy of “fuel tankers and trucks loaded with weapons”, killing at least 14, though an Iraqi border guard official said there were no casualties.
A US-led coalition fighting the remnants of the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria has carried out strikes on pro-Iran fighters in Syria in the past.
Israel has also acknowledged carrying out hundreds of air and missile strikes in the country since civil war broke out in 2011, targeting both government positions and Iran-backed forces.
