Assad's SANA Fabricates News that Two U.S. Soldiers Disappeared in Syria

The Assad regime’s official news agency SANA reported Monday, citing “local sources,” that two U.S. had disappeared in action in Syria's eastern province of Deir al-Zour.

“Unidentified people attacked a Hummer vehicle carrying U.S. soldiers who were heading from the al-Omar (oil) field to the al-Tanak (oil) field,” SANA reported on April 27. “The vehicle was found completely destroyed and burned. There is no trace of the two soldiers and their fate remains unknown.”

The U.S.-led Coalition Denies

Col. Myles B. Caggins III, a spokesman for the Global Coalition against Daesh, denied SANA’s claims.

“There is no incident involving coalition forces in Deir Ezzor. We can say that if there are prizes for fake news, this news agency deserves to win them all,” he wrote on Twitter.

Sadly Another Nonsense Article. 🤥 Niç niç! Dîsa bi nûçeyek derew hatin. 🤦🏾‍♂️
لا يوجد أي حادث يتعلق بقوات التحالف في دير الزور . يمكننا القول بأنه في حالة وجود جوائز للأخبار المزيفة، فإنّ هذه الوكالة الإخبارية تستحق أن تحظى بجميع هذه الجوائز إن وجدت https://t.co/DX9nb5XrFl pic.twitter.com/uiLckRXfdN

— OIR Spokesman Col. Myles B. Caggins III (@OIRSpox) April 27, 2020

Also, Verify-Sy Platform reached out to local sources to further fact-check the claims. Muhammad Hassan, a Syrian journalist focused on eastern Syria, denied that such an incident had occured recently in the area. He also said the U.S. forces sometimes conduct inspection and monitoring patrols in the area.

In July 2018, a joint patrol of the U.S. forces and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) was targeted by ISIS with an improvised explosive device (IED) in rural Deir al-Zour, which resulted in two deaths and a number of injuries in the U.S. forces.

ISIS’s Amaq News Agency reported at the time that four U.S. soldiers were killed in a series of IED explosions. It said ISIS forces ambushed U.S. troops near the al-Namlieh village near the town of al-Sour. A series of 18 blasts followed, according to the agency.