Syria accuses U.S.-led coalition of bombing, killing Syrian government troops

Syria's foreign ministry accused the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State inside Syria of firing nine missiles at a Syrian government camp in eastern Deir al-Zour province on Sunday night, killing three Syrian troops and wounding 13 others. "The Syrian Arab Republic strongly condemns this flagrant aggression by the U.S.-led coalition forces, which blatantly violates the objectives of the UN Charter," the foreign ministry said, adding that "aggression hinders the efforts to fight terrorism, and proves that the U.S.-led coalition lacks seriousness and credibility to effectively fight terrorism".

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group agreed that the Saeqa camp near the town of Ayyash had been hit by somebody, putting the death toll at four, but the U.S. coalition denied conducting any airstrikes in the area. "We've seen those Syrian reports but we did not conduct any strikes in that part of Deir al-Zour yesterday," said Col. Steve Warren, spokesman for the U.S. military in Baghdad. The closest coalition aircraft came to the Saeqa camp was an oilfield wellhead 34 miles away, he added. "There were no human beings in the area that we struck yesterday." Deir al-Zour is mostly controlled by ISIS. If the U.S.-led coalition did hit Syrian forces, it would be the first time since coalition aircraft started bombing raids in Syria.