by Jonathan Spyer
It is important and relevant that the West and its allies continue to hold their ground on this largely forgotten front of the ongoing struggle currently underway in the region.
On the night of Monday, August 12, six projectiles were fired by Iran-aligned militiamen at the US base in the area of the Conoco gas field, in Syria's Deir al-Zur province. There were no injuries.
The attack followed an incident earlier that day in which eight members of an Iran-supported militia were killed when a drone struck their vehicle traveling from the village of al-Kishmah to al-Duwair, near the strategic al-Bukamal border crossing between Iraq and Syria.
No one took responsibility for the killing of the eight militiamen. Israel sometimes strikes Iranian targets in this area, which constitutes a vital node on the Iranian arms route leading from Iran itself to Lebanon, the Mediterranean, and Israel.
However, the balance of probabilities suggests that these particular eight gunmen died not at the hands of Israeli ordnance, but rather as a result of action by the US-led coalition in Syria.
Understanding this sudden flare-up requires a deeper look at the events of the last seven days.
The Conoco and al-Bukamal strikes are the latest moves in a sharp uptick of tensions in the strategically vital Deir al-Zur province and its surrounding area over the past week.
Syria's Deir al-Zur province is currently divided into two. The division runs along the line of the Euphrates River, Syria's main waterway.
East of the river, the area is administered by the US-aligned, Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). US forces maintain bases in the area, close to the al-Omar oilfield and the Conoco gas field.
West of the river, the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its allied militias are in control, in partnership with their allies among the forces of the Bashar Assad regime.
The Iranian-aligned groups won a race against the US-aligned forces down the Euphrates River valley in the summer of 2019.
Iranians have control
As a result, the Iranians control the border crossing at al-Bukamal and the surrounding area, and use it for the transport of arms and materiel for their allies in the fronts further west.
Iran wants to drive the US out of Deir al-Zur, and has been seeking to foment an insurgency among the Sunni Arab tribes of the province as part of this effort.
"The main goal of Iran is to come and control this region," Abu Ali Fullat, an official of the Deir al-Zur military council, told me during a visit to the region in late March.
We spoke at a dusty SDF base a few kilometers from the river. "They're trying to use all kinds of methods to achieve this," he said. "We have attacks across the river on a near-daily basis. It's not only Iran but also the [Assad] regime that sends the mercenaries across the river."
The pace of this confrontation, largely ignored by the Western media, ebbs and flows according to the more general regional situation.
At present, it has abruptly intensified, almost certainly as a result of the more general rise in tensions between the US and Iran, which derives in turn from the current region-wide conflict between Israel and Iran and its proxies.
ON AUGUST 7, the Iranian-supported militias launched a sudden attack across the Euphrates.
The attack followed a rocket strike on US personnel stationed at the al-Asad air base in Iraq, on August 5, which appears to have been the starting gun for the commencement of the current heightened aggression. Five US troops and two contractors were wounded.
The militias in Deir al-Zur sought to push toward the al-Omar oilfield and the adjoining US base.
An SDF statement reported by the Kurdish ANF News stated that the attacks were repelled within four hours and that eight of the attackers were killed and 16 wounded.
The report also noted the deaths of 11 civilian residents of Dahlah village in the SDF-controlled area, including six children, as a result of shelling by the Iran-aligned forces.
According to the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the clashes led to the beefing up of the US presence in Deir al-Zur, with a convoy of 12 military and armored vehicles, and 20 trucks carrying military and logistical equipment, heading south to the province from Hasakeh, the more stable northern province under SDF control.
The battle continues
The clashes have continued, with the SDF launching a counter-raid in the direction of al-Bukamal on Monday. SDF forces also acted to isolate pro-Iranian and Assad regime forces located within SDF territory.
ONE OF the anomalies of the area east of the Euphrates is that the Assad regime maintains a military presence in two areas east of the Euphrates – in small parts of Hasakeh and Qamishli cities.
These areas have been steadily whittled away over the last 10 years and are surrounded by the SDF.
Following the attacks of August 7, SDF forces surrounded the areas and several regime officers were arrested, according to SDF sources.
On Friday, August 9, against the background of the fighting, a drone was launched at the US-held Kharab al-Jeir base in the oil rich area of Rumeilan, in Hasakeh province. Several regional media sources reported that the drone was launched from Iraq.
Three days after this, the drone strike that killed the Iran-backed militia near al-Bukamal took place.
Given the context of the events of the previous days, it is overwhelmingly likely that the US-led coalition was responsible, and that the counterattack was intended to reinstate deterrence between the US-aligned forces and their Iran-linked opponents.
Will it succeed? The subsequent strike on Conoco, and the evidence of the last seven months suggest not.
But it also seems that the Iranians do not seek currently to turn Deir al-Zur into a major front in the regional confrontation.
The Iranian-associated militias have carried out over 200 attacks on US-led coalition bases in Syria since October 2023.
The greater number of the attacks have not been launched from regime/Iran-controlled Syria to the west of the US/Kurdish area, but rather from its east, from Iraq.
Similarly, Syria has not been used as a site for attacks against Israel, in the way that Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen have been.
This is in line with the general effort of the Iranian-led axis to keep Syria out of the current round of hostilities, as far as possible.
Iran holds on to its link
The Iranian-led axis prefers to keep this area as a vital ground link between its forces, rather than a main arena of conflict.
Deir al-Zur, whose fate is directly linked to the Tehran-Beirut arms route, is the partial exception to this general rule.
The fight there goes largely unnoticed by the international media, which tired of Syria some years ago. But the fate of Deir al-Zur is not an irrelevance and there is a reason why the Iranians are expending effort and lives on trying to drive the Americans out and end the SDF presence there.
The narrow passageway of al-Bukamal leaves the Tehran-Beirut arms highway vulnerable to being swiftly cut off by a ground move from the north, or to arms convoys heading through it in a time of war being obliterated from above.
Possession of the province in its entirety would end this vulnerability.
That is the reason why Tehran continues to have its proxy forces conduct their slow-burning insurgency across the Euphrates.
It is also why it is important and relevant that the West and its allies continue to hold their ground on this largely forgotten front of the ongoing struggle currently underway in the region.
Jonathan Spyer is director of research at the Middle East Forum and author of Days of the Fall: A Reporter's Journey in the Syria and Iraq Wars (2018).
Source: https://www.meforum.org/66041/airstrikes-in-syria-deir-al-zur-could-foreshadow
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