There Were No Explosions Inside the US Base in Homs
The Claim
Explosions have been heard inside the US base near the Syria-Iraq border.
News posted on
Emerging story
On December 5, 2021, Al-Arabiya News and other platforms began disseminating reports of an explosion allegedly heard inside a US base near the Syria-Iraq border. According to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), the explosions took place inside the US base in the Al-Tanf region of Homs' eastern countryside.
Misbar’s Analysis
The Syrian state media reported on Sunday about US base explosions based on stories provided by locals to its reporter. According to local sources, multiple explosions were heard inside a US base in the 55 km al-Tanf region in the border triangle between Syria, Iraq, and Jordan. According to SANA, military helicopters affiliated with the occupation forces were seen flying over the area after the explosions.
However, as our investigation has revealed, the explosions did not occur inside the US base, nor were they the result of a military attack. According to Reuters, a commander in the US-backed rebel group Maghawir Al-Thawra, whose several hundred fighters work alongside US troops at the Tanf base, stated that the explosions were part of the joint ground and air exercises that began earlier this week. It has also been stated that the alleged blasts did not originate within the base.
The denial of explosions inside the U.S. base was also reported by the U.S. News, citing the previous statement. Arab News, one of the first news outlets to report the claim, published an updated version of the story on its website, which included the coalition's denial statement.
The Al-Tanf base, established in 2016 and critical to the fight against ISIS, is where American and Coalition forces are stationed, training Jaysh Maghawir Al-Thawra. It is located in the Homs province, at the intersection of the Syrian, Jordanian, and Iraqi borders. According to US officials, the base was attacked by Iranian drones last October, but no casualties were reported. Officials in the United States and Israel saw the attack as retaliation for Israeli airstrikes in Syria. Nonetheless, despite the ongoing armed conflict in Syria between the US-led coalition and other factions, the latest blasts were not the result of an attack on the US base. Instead, they were part of a coalition-led joint ground and air exercise outside the US base. As a result, Misbar considers the circulating claim to be misleading.
