British forces bombed Syrian regime units: report

By Muhammad Mussa

LONDON (AA) - The Royal Air Force (RAF) bombed units loyal to the Bashar al-Assad regime after a firefight erupted near a British Special Air Service (SAS) training base in the Syrian desert.

The RAF dropped a 500-pound laser-guided missile on regime forces last month during a firefight near the borders of Iraq and Jordan, a report by The Sunday Times has revealed.

“As an act of collective self-defence, RAF Typhoons dropped a single Paveway IV on the position, which successfully removed the threat to our coalition partners,” a spokesman from the Defence Ministry told The Sunday Times.

A Syrian army officer was killed and several others were wounded during the incident, the report added.

The attack would mark the first time British forces have directly engaged with forces allied to the Assad regime, since it took part in an airstrike with the U.S. and France in April after a chemical weapons attack by the regime.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K. based Syrian monitoring organization, reported that explosions could be heard near the desert garrison of al-Tanf, a fortified area used by British and U.S. forces to train an anti-Daesh rebel force.

The U.K. and the U.S have special forces on the ground in Syria training rebels to fight against Daesh terrorists and rarely clash with forces loyal to the Syrian regime. There have been, however, some instances where coalition forces have targeted regime forces, mainly through airstrikes.

In April 2017, the U.S. targeted the regime held Shayrat Airbase in Homs after it attacked Khan Sheikhoun town in northwestern province of Idlib with chemical weapons.

In April 2018, the U.S. alongside the U.K. and France attacked regime positions after it had used chemical weapons once again.