US Army Officer Reportedly Killed In Deir Ezzor Ambush: Syrian Media

Syrian state media is reporting that a US Army officer was killed during an ambush of a convoy of military vehicles the eastern part of the country Monday.

The reported attack took place in the town of Al-Sour, in the northeast of Deir Ezzor, reported SANA News Agency. Two members of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were also said killed in the attack by unknown gunmen.

Middle East Monitor and others said the attackers were part of an ISIS terror cell. Lebanon’s Al-Mayadeen TV was the first to report the news, subsequently picked up in other foreign media; however, neither the US State Department nor Pentagon have yet to confirm or deny the reports.

“An American officer and several SDF soldiers were killed in an ambush targeting a patrol in Wasiy’ah in the northern countryside of Deir Ezzor,” Al-Mayadeen reported Monday.

And China’s official state-run Xinhua filled in more alleged details as follows:

The ambush, carried out by an unknown group, targeted vehicles of the U.S.-led coalition and fighters of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the village of Sur in Deir al-Zour’s countryside.

The slain U.S. officer was transported to the Shaddadi base, which is run by the U.S. forces, in the southern countryside of the northeastern province of Hasakah, SANA said, providing no further details.

American forces and their proxies in the SDF still control several oil and gas fields in eastern Syria, which both Damascus and Russia have long demanded be returned to the Syrian state.

A U.S. officer was killed in Syria near Deir ez-Zor w 2 SDF in an attack by unknown men on April 6, 2020. About 600 US military occupy Syria’s oil fields to use the money & divert oil from the Syrian government to the SDF under the guise of fighting ISIS. https://t.co/VXw4UvXodL

— Joshua Landis (@joshua_landis) April 7, 2020

Despite Syria as well as the still festering Idlib situation and standoff between the Syrian Army and Turkish forces being out of the headlines for months, the death of a US officer, if confirmed, would mark a huge development.