Sep 17, 2017

Washington and Moscow have held high-level talks aimed at shoring up military "deconfliction" zones in eastern Syria after Russia was accused of targeting US-backed forces battling the Islamic State group in an air strike, a top US general said Sunday.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Washington-backed Kurd and Arab fighters, said Saturday that several of its fighters were injured in a bombing by Russian warplanes east of the Euphrates River near Syria's oil-rich province of Deir Ezzor.

A Russian military spokesman denied targeting the group, though the coalition claimed that the Russians knew the zone contained SDF fighters.

General Joe Dunford, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he had spoken to his Russian counterpart General Valery Gerasim

ov and that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had also addressed the issue with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.