Xelil Şirvan, a commander of a group of Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, told Sputnik that a US military base had been detected near the town of Al-Qa'im in northwest Iraq on the border with Syria.
"According to our data, the United States has set up a new military base in the strategically important region of Al-Qa'im in Anbar province on the Iraqi-Syrian border. Americans are building up [their] military presence in the region, which is why Iraqi government forces have sent more military reinforcements to Al-Qa'im to boost border protection," he said.
A spokesperson for the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led militant group, detailed that the new base was involved in an operation the SDF fighters launched earlier in the month against the last Daesh* stronghold in Hajin in eastern Syria.
Al-Qa'im, an Iraqi town which lies near the strategic border crossing that links to the Syrian town of Abu Kamal, was retaken in the beginning of November last year; later the Iraqi military announced that it had restored control over the checkpoints on the border with Syria.
*Daesh (aka Islamic State/ISIS/IS) is a terrorist group outlawed in Russia and many other countries.
