The air raid on Syria�s military base in the city of Dayr al-Zawr just hours before the Syrian army was supposed to launch a major operation to purge this city of terrorists has created many doubts. The bombardment was carried out by four American fighter jets, which as claimed by the Russian forces, did not pay any attention to warnings and continued their raid against the Syrian base. As a result of the air strike, at least 62 Syrian soldiers were killed, while Syrian officials put the number of dead Syrian troops at 80. This strange measure has raised many questions.
The United States of America has declared that it is sorry about the attack and the bombardment has taken place by mistake. Such apology on the part of the United States has not been unprecedented. In past cases, American officials had apologized for bombarding supply lines of the Iraqi army and the country�s popular mobilization forces, or for airdropping weapons to Daesh terrorists in Iraq. In all those cases, they said that the attacks were mistaken and not intentional. However, these measures taken by the US military caused the war against Daesh to take two years in Iraq and prevented the country�s second biggest city, Mosul, from being liberated from terrorists.

Nobody can believe that bombardment of the Syrian army positions by the United States has not been intentional. Russians say their satellite pictures and monitoring across the region totally proves that US forces deliberately bombarded rallying point of the Syrian forces.

Following the bombardment, Daesh terrorists managed to make further advances and conquer sensitive positions of the Syrian army; a development, which, as put by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, �borders on connivance with Daesh.� Of course, the achievement by Daesh terrorists did not last long and in less than 24 hours, the Syrian army reclaimed its lost positions.

The question is why Americans should embark on bombarding Syrian army�s positions under the existing sensitive conditions and at a time that they apparently emphasized on the need to maintain the ceasefire and repeatedly insisted that the failure of ceasefire in Syria could have grave and dangerous consequences?

Americans not only did not make any effort to maintain the ceasefire in Syria, but started a diplomatic row with Russians at the United Nations Security Council. In doing this, instead of accepting that they have made a mistake, Americans tried to engage in arguments with Russian diplomats as if they intentionally wanted to keep their real intentions hidden.

Many experts believe that the ceasefire in Syria was nothing but an excuse in order to allow Syrian opposition forces regroup and start a new war against the government. It seems that the warning issued by Americans about violation of the ceasefire in Syria is actually warning about escalation of situation in the Arab country due to renewed military strength of the opposition groups.

As reported by Iran�s Fars news agency, the Syrian army has started its big operation to take the city of Dayr al-Zawr back from terrorists. Dayr al-Zawr is one of the most important oil production hubs in Syria, which is currently under control of Daesh terrorists, who extract its oil, sell it in global markets through certain means and earn money. Americans, however, claim that through their bombardments during the past one and a half years in this region, they have been able to bar Daesh�s access to the city�s oil reserves. Nonetheless, this issue cannot hide the fact that Dayr al-Zawr is a very important city whose liberation can totally change the existing equations in Syria. This is especially true now that the Syrian army is also launching a simultaneous operation to liberate the city of Aleppo as well. Conducting two parallel operations to liberate the two cities of Aleppo and Dayr al-Zawr at the same time can be the end of Syrian President Bashar Assad�s opposition groups. This is true because liberating these two important cities from opposition forces will incur a heavy defeat on them and their regional allies.

In fact, by conducting this bombardment, Americans aimed to send the message that they will not allow the Syrian city of Dayr al-Zawr to be liberated easily and will not allow the Syrian army to do this as it is celebrating the liberation of Aleppo and defeat of the opposition groups there. Liberation of these cities can mean total failure of the policies followed by the United States and its regional allies in Syria.

This article was written by Ali Mousavi Khalkhali for Iran REVIEW ON Sep 27, 2016. Ali Mousavi Khalkhali is Deputy Editor in Chief at Iranian Diplomacy (IRD).