A UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter stationed in Syria crashed in northeastern Syria, killing 22. “22 U.S. service members were wounded to varying degrees in a helicopter accident in northeastern Syria,” an official statement clarified, adding that there were no reports of enemy fire at the time. The severity of the injuries varied, and 15 people were transferred to a senior care facility abroad for treatment. The widely reported incident, which likely occurred during an airdrop operation in Syria’s northeastern province of Hasakah, is far from unprecedented. In 2017, for example, a U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey crashed in the country, killing two Marines, while others were also killed in clashes with local forces. The U.S. military retains about 900 personnel in Syria and has reinforced the garrison in 2018-2020 with heavy weapons including HIMARS rocket artillery systems, M1A2 Abrams tanks and M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles. Thereafter, other assets continued to be deployed as further reinforcements.
U.S. troops in Syria have been deployed to control the country’s most oil-rich region, with vast amounts of oil being extracted, exported, sold, and set aside to fund the U.S. military presence. This is widely considered illegal, a war crime if not looting, because neither the Syrian government nor the UN Security Council has authorized the occupation or exploitation and sale of Syrian oil, and those are the only authorities that can legally do so under international law. Efforts by Syria and allies to challenge the U.S. military presence have been met with overwhelming retaliation, using the U.S. military’s vast network of regional military bases and naval presence around them, with aircraft ranging from AC-130 gunships to F-18E Super Hornet fighter jets Consistently deployed to support ground personnel when they are under threat. The Black Hawk helicopters deployed in Syria have also specifically deployed unique laser countermeasures to improve survivability against possible attacks using hand-held infrared-guided surface-to-air missiles. The U.S. occupation has been backed by some European countries, including Norway and France, which have deployed special forces into the occupied zone, and NATO ally Turkey, which has implemented a similar occupation in northeastern Syria.