Raid on pro-Iran militia convoy in eastern Syria kills around 15: Monitor

A strike on a pro-Iran militia convoy in eastern Syria near the border with Iraq killed around 15 people overnight, a war monitor said Wednesday, without specifying who carried it out.

The strike hit a convoy of “fuel tankers and trucks loaded with weapons,” in the al-Bukamal area of the border, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The US military told reporters in Iraq that it had no involvement in the raid.

An official of the Iraqi border guard said the trucks were transporting fuel from Iran to Lebanon overland through Iraq and Syria.

He said the convoy consisted of 22 tanker trucks, of which 10 were hit after entering Syrian territory through the al-Qaim - al-Bukamal border crossing. Four trucks were “completely burnt,” he added.

The Britain-based observatory said at least 14 people were killed in the strike. It said a nearby militia position was also hit.

Contacted by AFP, a spokeswoman for the US-led coalition fighting the remnants of ISIS said that the strike was not carried out by the United States or any other coalition country.

Pro-Iran militias have a major presence around the Iraq-Syria border and are heavily deployed south and west of the Euphrates in Syria’s Deir Ezzor province.