The US military secretly approves the Israeli airstrikes carried out against Iranian-linked targets in Syria to make sure the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attacks don’t interfere with their operations in the country, US officials claim, as the allies face a battlefield crowded with foreign militaries, militant groups, and Iranian-backed militias.
Citing current and former US officials, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that IDF has reportedly been coordinating the vast majority of their attacks on Syrian targets with the Pentagon and US Central Command (CENTCOM) for several years.
One former US official said that it’s a well-developed and deliberate process needed to ensure Israeli jets’ raids didn’t interfere with the operations of the US contingent, stationed at the Al-Tanf base near Syria’s border with Jordan.
Such incidents occurred in two instances: during the 2019 raid of the US Delta Force that killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and during the US-led campaign against ISIS in the Euphrates River Valley.
The report explains that IDF is sometimes conducting its strikes from near the base to avoid Syrian air defenses, but the base was attacked in October, according to anonymous US and Israeli intelligence officials, by drones sent by pro-Iranian militias in retaliation against Israeli airstrikes in Syria.
The pro-Iranian militias have targeted Al-Tanf multiple times with drones and rockets.
Although many of Israel’s operations in Syria have been reviewed in advance for approval by CENTCOM and Pentagon’s senior officials, the US allegedly didn’t help the Israelis pick their targets.
Trying to support its ally without being drawn into Israel’s shadow war against Iran, the US has largely kept quiet about any coordination with Israel in Syria while Israel coordinates its operations in Syria with Russia through a deconfliction mechanism,
Syrian authorities consider the US presence at the Al-Tanf base an illegal occupation and Damascus has repeatedly protested against the IDF raids, underscoring that they violate both Syrian sovereignty and international law.
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