US reportedly setting up new base in northern Syria

A half dozen years after abandoning Kobani, US forces are reportedly building a base in this northern Syrian city on the Turkish border that has been riven by strife between Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Turkish-backed forces, Report informs via The War Zone.

This all comes as a new Syrian government is trying to establish control over the country after ousting Bashar al-Assad.

Several videos and images have emerged on social media claiming to show US troops and equipment heading toward Kobani, reportedly to build a new international coalition base.

The US has a presence of about 2,000 troops in Syria, ostensibly deployed to continue the ongoing fight against ISIS. That fight apparently came to the US on Wednesday, when a man claiming ISIS affiliation carried out a deadly attack in New Orleans.

US forces “brought in a convoy of 50 trucks carrying cement blocks to SDF-controlled areas in north-eastern Syria,” the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) wrote Thursday morning.

“SOHR activists have reported seeing the convoy on Al-Hasakah-Al-Raqqah highway, while it was heading to Ain Al-Arab area (Kobani) in the eastern countryside of Aleppo. The convoy was accompanied by a military vehicle of SDF.

According to SOHR sources, this comes as a part of US forces’ efforts to boost their bases and establish a new military base in Ain Al-Arab in light of the growing security and military tension in that region.”

The international coalition forces “brought a convoy of logistic reinforcements including premade chambers, surveillance cameras, cement blocks, fuel tanks and digging machinery towards Kobani,” SOHR added.

“…the digging and drilling will start tomorrow and more military reinforcements such as soldiers, weapons, armored vehicles, radars, and anti-aircraft weapons will be brought.”