On 17th June, 2018, 10pm local time, an airstrike from an unidentified aircraft struck the village of Harri, southeast of the town of Albu Kamal in Deir ez-Zour Province. The strike hit positions where the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies were stationed, which included Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Kata’ib Hezbollah of the Iraqi Popular Mobilisation Units (PMU). Various sources put the total number of deaths between 38 and 95 people, with the PMU stating that 22 of its fighters were killed and 12 were wounded. The high death-toll was likely due to the strike hitting a villa that was being used as headquarters for local militias, although some observers claimed that a large number of fighters had congregated in the area either to launch an offensive against the Islamic State (IS) or to watch the Brazil-Switzerland football game that had taken place shortly before the strike.
Following the attack, the Syrian Government and the PMU both issued statements, with both sides blaming the United States and the International Coalition for the airstrike. Subsequently, both the Pentagon and the International Coalition denied responsibility in the attack, with the latter warning against misinformation and calling on the PMU to clarify its statement. Other sides, reportedly including a US official, blamed Israel for the attack. While Israel has reportedly targeted positions on its border with Syria before, it has not been shown to conduct any strikes this deep during the Syrian conflict.
In February of this year, a similar incident took place that ignited tensions between Syria and the US when the International Coalition conducted an airstrike on pro-Government forces in Deir ez-Zour, killing Syrian and Russian military personnel. Data aggregated from Russian social media sites such as VKontakte seems to confirm that at least seven Russians, all working for the Private Military Company, Wagner, were among those killed by the airstrikes. The deaths of the seven have all been confirmed via names, photos and employment records. However, the number may have been much higher. Former-CIA Director Mike Pompeo stated in April that the US’ airstrikes in Syria killed “a couple hundred Russians”. This number was verified by Mark Feygin, a Russian lawyer and politician, who put the actual number may at approximately 215. Feygin cited his personal contacts within Wagner as his source for this information. If these numbers are true, the Coalition’s airstrikes would have resulted in the greatest loss of Russian lives at the hands of a Western military force since the Cold War.
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