Attack on fuel convoy kills 14 militia

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) — A strike on a pro-Iran militia convoy in eastern Syria near the Iraqi border killed at least 14 people overnight, a war monitor said Wednesday, without specifying who carried it out.

The attack hit a convoy of "fuel tankers and trucks loaded with weapons," in the the Albu Kamal area of the border, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

An official of the Iraqi border guard said the trucks were transporting fuel from Iran to Lebanon overland through Iraq and Syria.

He said the convoy consisted of 22 tanker trucks, of which 10 were hit after entering Syrian territory through the Al-Qaim-Albu Kamal border crossing. Four trucks were "completely burnt," he added.
The Britain-based Observatory said at least 14 people were killed in the strike. It said a nearby militia position was also hit.

Contacted by AFP, a spokesperson for the United States-led coalition fighting the remnants of the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria said that the strike was not carried out by the US or any other coalition country.

Pro-Iran militias have a major presence around the Iraq-Syria border and are heavily deployed south and west of the Euphrates in Syria's Deir Ezzor province.