In a September 18, 2016 column in the Syrian government daily Al-Thawra, columnist Khaled Al-Ashhab rejected the claim that the September 17, 2016 U.S. airstrike on Syrian army troops in Deir Al-Zor was an accident, saying that the U.S. forces possessed technological means to prevent such accidents. He added that this claim was a lie, and that the Americans kept their true intentions in their hearts and minds. This airstrike, he added, was further proof that the U.S. has been collaborating with the terrorists against the Syrian regime and aiding them for the past five years.

It should be noted that similar claims have been made by Syrian regime officials. President Bashar Al-Assad's political and media advisor Buthaina Sha'ban told the French news agency AFP: "The raid was deliberate. Everything was premediated. ISIS knew about it, and when it advanced the raids stopped."[1]

Syria's UN envoy Bashar Al-Jaafari said that the purpose of the airstrike was to undermine the U.S.-Russian ceasefire agreement reached on September 10, 2016.[2]



Map of area where the U.S. airstrike took place (Image: facebook.com/DeirEzzor24, September 17, 2016)

The following are excerpts from Al-Ashhab's column: [3]

"Why do people condemn the American airstrike and why are they surprised by it? After all, the U.S. has been bombing the Arab Syrian army for over five years by means of others [i.e., Assad's enemies in Syria]. The only difference is that, this time, the finger that pulled the trigger was strictly American. This time, just like in over 100 occasions in the past, its planes 'made a mistake.' Instead of airdropping weapons and food to ISIS, they dropped bombs on the Syrian army. It's the same thing.

"So it was just a mistake, the U.S. army claimed yesterday. An accident. Would the terrorist global aggression be targeting Syria for the past five years had the U.S. not deliberately pushed it towards Syria, from the north and the south?

"Where would ISIS, Jabhat Al-Nusra and their ilk acquire all these weapons, had America not made occasional 'mistakes' when ferrying [weapons] across the border or dropping them from the sky? It's quite amazing that America's coordinate[-system] technology could not identify ISIS's convoys, only the units of the Arab Syrian army.

"This [claim] is ridiculous, of course, just [like the claim] that the U.S. was unable to distinguish between the terrorists and the 'moderates,' on the grounds that their [troops] intermingled. Does the Syrian army mix with ISIS, so that even the Americans are unable to understand what is happening? Or have the achievements of the [Syrian] army exposed that the Americans are mixing with ISIS?

"So this American mistake was actually correct. It was a mistake on the outside but intentional on the inside. The Americans utter lies, while [keeping] their intentional actions in their hearts and minds."

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