US conducts airdrop raid near Syria-Turkey border

US-led coalition forces executed an airborne raid on August 20th in the Idlib province, near the Syria-Turkey border, targeting alleged Islamic State (IS) members, as reported by The New Arab.

According to local sources, two coalition helicopters directed the landing operation with aerial cover from reconnaissance aircraft. Syrian Internal Security Forces were operating on the ground.

The raid focused on numerous houses belonging to members of the Qaddour family, alongside foreign women of unspecified nationalities. The people targeted were freed after the two-hour operation, according to sources. Security units searched nearby farmland. No casualties were reported, and the fate of the alleged IS figure targeted in the mission remains unknown.

The operation comes after a joint mission from July 25th, in the Aleppo province, where coalition and Syrian security personnel killed three IS fighters. They also detained an Iraqi commander. This was the first reported cooperation of this type.

Authorities in Syria said on August 19th that they discovered a mass grave which had nine bodies in the countryside of Latakia province. Head of Internal Security Forces in Latakia, Brigadier General Abdulaziz Hilal al-Ahmed, said that units were sent to Bustan al-Basha after intelligence signalled the presence of the mass grave.

The remains were situated in a big pit inside a farm owned by Hassan Youssef Younes. Younes was an ex-air force brigadier general in the former Assad regime, according to the interior ministry. The bodies were recovered by civil defence units. The bodies were decomposed and brought to forensic medicine, according to a local source.

Ahmed also said investigations are currently ongoing and has promised to maintain continued efforts “to uncover the facts and reinforce stability in the province.”

Saydnaya Detainees’ Association has claimed that the Assad regime has levelled mass graves in 2023, citing satellite evidence of a site suspected to contain the remains of thousands of detainees who have been declared as disappeared.

The Assad regime has also been accused of “systematically and deliberately” erasing its crimes “by concealing evidence,” as stated by Saydnaya Detainees’ Association head, Diab Serrih. This is after the regime’s refusal to disclose the whereabouts of several political prisoners in the country.

The New Arab, Maghrebi.org