US Navy destroyer USS Ross
© REUTERS/ Robert S. Price/Courtesy U.S. NavyUS Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Ross (DDG 71) fires a tomahawk land attack missile in Mediterranean Sea which US Defense Department said was a part of cruise missile strike against Syria on April 7, 2017
The US-led coalition has announced that it won't conduct operations on Syrian territory controlled by the government on the western side of the Euphrates River, Operation Inherent Resolve's Deputy Commander UK Maj. Gen. Felix Gedney said during a press briefing.

"We will continue to prevent conflicts with Russians, but we don't intend to continue operations in areas controlled by Assad," Gedney said.

According to Gedney, the US-led coalition forces allegedly saw Daesh fighters moving with impunity in the government-held areas of the country.

"We are seeing the movement of a limited number of militants westwards. They seem to be moving with impunity through the regime-held territory, showing that the regime is clearly either unwilling or unable to defeat Daesh within their borders," Gedney told reporters, adding that the coalition forces had seen Daesh fighters moving around areas near the US military base at al-Tanf in Syria.

"We are taking those individuals off the battlefield," Gedney said, calling on the Syrian government to clear the areas from Daesh under its control.

The announcement by the coalition comes hours after Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov said that US explanations about its base in southern Syria's Tanf are still "unintelligible" after US Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter Daesh Brett McGurk said that the coalition will maintain its presence in Syria to guarantee that the Daesh terrorists don't return to the liberated areas.


Comment: US explanations about its base in southern Syria's At-Tanf are still "unintelligible", Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov told the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper in an interview issued on Wednesday.
"We say that the location of the US base is contrary to common sense, especially now, when Syrian territory has been liberated from IS [Daesh] formations. There is no one left, there is no threat to you from the territory of Syria. What is there and for what purpose? The answers are still unintelligible. However, new terrorist groups may appear there," Gerasimov said.

After several strikes by the coalition targeting the Syrian army, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted the illegal presence of the US-led coalition forces in the Arab Republic.

Moscow previously voiced concern over coalition's airstrikes against a Syrian military convoy near the town of al-Tanf back in May.

The US-led coalition of more than 70 members has been conducting military operations against Daesh in Syria, with the strikes not being authorized by the government of President Bashar Assad or the UN Security Council.