US denies reports of soldiers missing after attack in Syria's Deir az-Zour

US denies reports of soldiers missing after attack in Syria's Deir az-Zour
A spokesman for the international coalition fighting IS has called a Syrian state news report about two allegedly missing US soldiers 'nonsense'.
2 min read
27 April, 2020
The attack allegedly took place in the eastern region of Deir az-Zour [Getty/ Archive]

The US military has denied reports that two American soldiers went missing in action after their vehicle was attacked in the eastern Syrian city of Deir az-Zour

Syrian state news agency SANA on Monday claimed that unknown assailants had targeted US forces near the al-Omar air field, causing two soldiers to go missing.

A burnt out, abandoned Humvee was found after the incident, the report added.

The report was denied Col. Myles B. Caggins III, the spokesman for the international coalition fighting the Islamic State group in Syria, who posted his rebuttal to Twitter.

"Sadly Another Nonsense Article," Caggins said in a tweeted accompanied by a screenshot of the SANA article labelled "FAKE!!!".

In recent months there have been reports of an increase in IS activity in eastern Syria.

Earlier this month, the extremist group captured a military outpost from the Syrian regime near the town of Sukhna in the Syrian Desert.

From its inception, IS has characterised itself as a "state" with a government and public institutions, rather than a militant group, despite being unanimously rejected by the international community.

On Saturday, British forces in Iraq carried out their first anti-IS airstrikes since September in an operation aimed at "removing several Daesh fighters from the battlefield and further degrading the terrorist movement.”

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