The Islamic State carried out a violent attack on a rebel base in the Syrian town of al-Tanf, in which were located British and American Special Forces that train moderate rebels. The attack took place on Sunday morning and thirty suicide bombers and fighters of ISIS were involved. Jihadists detonated a mass car bomb at the entrance, which helped them breach the base.
ISIS performed the attack
During the attack, the US and British Special Forces already left the base because, after the attack on the US Navy air base from the Syrian regime, they feared retaliation from the Syrian air force.
But the attack came from ISIS. Jihadists managed to sneak in as well because they were wearing US uniforms and traveled in vehicles of US production that they previously took from moderate rebels.
American and British Special Forces were found hidden in the desert, together with the allied rebels, who rushed to the base to help defend it. The US Air Force also carried out several attacks on the forces of ISIS.
The British and the Americans train moderate rebels to fight ISIS
In a tense battle, which lasted three hours, neither American nor British special forces were killed. Eight jihadists were killed, and four rebels.
A rebel reinforcements convoy which was moving toward the base was ambushed by ISIS, but jihadists were successfully rejected.
As the British newspaper The Times reported in June last year, British and American special forces train moderate Syrian rebels to fight ISIS. Forces are located in the Syrian base in the town of al-Tanf, where they are helping the New Syrian Army in the fight against jihadists. The New Syrian Army is a small but elite rebel brigade made up of members of the Special Forces of Assad's army who defected after the civil war broke out.
Al-Tanf is the strategically essential location in southeast Syria, near the border of Iraq and Jordan. As the central command of the US Army (CENTCOM) reported after the attack, moderate rebels with whom the coalition is working in this area are focused on removing ISIS from the desert Hamad. They are strategically essential to combating the threat of ISIS in southern Syria and maintaining safety standards on the Syrian-Jordanian border.
A further objective of the insurgents and coalition forces is expelling ISIS from Abu Kamal, which would cut the corridor linking the strongholds of these terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria. Interestingly, the rebel base nik-Tanfu was bombed by the Russian Air Force last June. Although Russia denies the attack, the rebels photographed unexploded bombs of Russian origin as proof.
