The American newspaper, The New York Times, revealed that a very secret unit of the American army had struck the Euphrates Dam in Syria, despite it being on the list of prohibited places to strike, because it could cause a flood that threatens the lives of thousands of residents.
During the height of the war on ISIS in Syria, a series of bombings targeted the country’s largest dam on the Euphrates River, which holds a 25-mile-long reservoir above a valley where thousands of people live.
The Euphrates Dam in Tabqa was a strategic pillar and ISIS took control of it.
The explosions that occurred on March 26, 2017, knocked workers to the ground, and everything became dark. Witnesses say that one bomb destroyed five floors of the 18-storey building. The fire spread, basic equipment was disrupted, the powerful flow of the Euphrates rose suddenly, and local authorities began using loudspeakers to warn people to flee.
Russia and the Syrian government blamed the United States at this time. But the dam was on the US military’s no-strike list in locations where there were civilians, and General Stephen Townsend, the US attack commander at the time, said the allegations of US involvement were based on insane reports. And it was categorically declared two days after the bombings that the Tabqa Dam was not a target of the coalition.
But in fact, members of a top-secret US special operations unit, Task Force 9, have hit the dam using some of the largest conventional bombs in the US arsenal, including a BLU-109 bunker-buster designed to destroy thick concrete structures. , according to two former senior officials. This happened despite a military report that warned against bombing the dam because the damage could cause a flood that could kill tens of thousands of civilians.
The “New York Times” indicates that with the beginning of the war, the United States saw that controlling the dam, which was built in the era of the Soviet Union and is 30 miles from the “capital of the caliphate”, Raqqa, as a key to controlling the city. Armed factions took control of it in 2013, but ISIS annexed it to its areas, which it expanded into in 2014.
The group maintained a small force, with its towers and thick concrete walls providing protection. But it remained an important point for the provision of civil services, as workers continued to provide electric power and to organize irrigation operations that extended to farms.
In 2017, when the coalition launched its campaign to control the organization’s areas, it saw the importance of controlling it to prevent fighters from flooding the population living in the downstream. Special Task Force-19 was operating on the ground and devised several plans to control it before the strike, officials said.
The officials added: The force requested a specialized report from the Special Engineers Unit in the Office of Resources and Infrastructure of the US Military Intelligence, and asked for advice and an assessment of the size of the bombs that could be used. And the military agency’s response was quick: The dam is not a target.
In a four-page report, engineers said that 20-pound Hellfire missiles could be used to hit the eastern sides of the dam, but there were risks if bombs or missiles of any size were used against concrete structures that control the flow of water.
The former officials said that the report warned of any strike that could disrupt the dam and kill thousands of people. The report coincided with another United Nations report in January 2017, which warned against striking the dam because it could lead to its failure and inundation of communities 100 miles away. The report was prepared weeks before the raid and reached the US special force. However, in the last week of March 2017, a group of them decided to strike the dam using the largest available bombs. The reason for the strike is not known. At that time, US forces and “SDF” controlled the northern side of the dam, and ISIS forces controlled the southern edge.
Captain Bill Urban, a spokesman for the command, said that the coalition forces tried to take control of the dam, but it came under heavy fire, which led to it incurring heavy losses, and therefore decided to strike it, but the dam workers did not see or hear about the victims the day before the raid. What is clear is that Task Force 19 requested the raid in self-defense in a way that prevented it from returning to the higher levels. According to a report obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, operators requested a B-52 fighter jet that fielded high above the dam and requested strikes on three locations. But the report does not talk about the forces being exposed to enemy fire or that they incurred losses. The report says that the request was “to deprive the enemy of land.”
Two former officials say the issue of denial indicates that coalition forces were not in danger of being defeated by enemy fighters, and the task force’s goal was a preemptive operation and deprived fighters of turrets. They said that launching an attack under the pretext of self-protection was surprising given the different procedures. Weeks later, the United States decided to close a system of canals near Raqqa, which required an extensive approval process from the Targets Council. This is not what happened with the Euphrates dam.
An electrical engineer described the effects of the bombing and the subsequent calls between Russian officials and the US Central Command in Qatar and their warnings that time is short to prevent the catastrophe of the dam collapse. Less than 24 hours after the strike, it was agreed to stop the hostilities, and then a team of 16 workers, some of them from the coalition and the Syrian government, moved in. And they worked really hard with the rising waters.
The “Syrian Democratic Forces” denied that the dam had been attacked and said it was propaganda. Its spokeswoman said that the coalition hit the dam with light weapons so as not to harm it. Military commander Townsend denied the dam had been attacked. No control measures were taken against the Special Task Force, which continued to request raids based on the same justification. It is an emergency situation and self-defense.
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