Moscow Wants Washington To Explain Why Militants Operate Near US Forces In Syria

The Russian Defense Ministry has raised the issue of some 300 Daesh terrorists on pickup trucks infiltrating through a US-controlled zone in Syria’s al-Tanf.

The Russian Defense Ministry has urged “the US side to explain its selective blindness regarding militants” operating near US forces in Syria.

The ministry’s spokesman said the 300 Daesh militants had tried to block a strategically important road linking Damascus and Deir ez-Zor, used for delivering humanitarian aid for civilians and supplies for the Syrian Army.

Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said that truce in the southern de-escalation zone in Syriacould be undermined after the relocation of 600 militants and two convoys with medical aid into the area.

“Considering such significant reinforcement in terms of manpower, medicines and food, at the US’ tacit approval, one does not have to be an expert to forecast an attempt to derail the truce in the southern de-escalation zone”, he said.

According to the spokesman, on October 2-3 a group of 600 militants, previously based in the Rukban refugee camp, located in the American-controlled al-Tanf zone, headed westward in SUVs, and after covering some 300 kilometers entered the southern zone of de-escalation through a former border control point at the Syria-Jordan border in Daraa.

“By another ‘strange’ coincidence, almost simultaneously with them, two convoys [30 and 60 tons respectively] with medicines and products for the local population entered this de-escalation zone… All humanitarian aid that arrived and, above all, medicines, was unloaded and is under control of the militants who came from al-Tanf. At the same time, according to available information, these settlements are under the control of al-Nusra Front ‘sleeper cells’,” he said.

Konashenkov said that meant that 600 militants who arrived from the US-controlled zone in al-Tanf were either to fight these ‘cells’ for medicines and food, or act jointly with them.

The spokesman underscored the US would solely bear all the responsibility for sabotaging the peace process in Syria.

sputnik