April 17, 2023, Washington: Twenty-three US troops in Syria suffered traumatic brain injuries during two attacks in March by Iran-backed militants, the US Central Command, which oversees US forces in the Middle East, has said.
“We have identified 11 additional cases of mild Traumatic Brain Injury from the March 23rd and 24th attacks in eastern Syria,” it said in a statement. “Twenty-three of those wounded and assessed as mTBI cases. Our medical teams continue to assess and evaluate our troops for indications of mTBI.” Twenty-five US troops were wounded due to the strikes and counter-strikes in Syria, killing an American contractor and injuring another.
The Pentagon estimated eight militants were killed during retaliatory US air strikes against two Iran-linked facilities in Syria. It is not the first time US troops in the region have been diagnosed with brain injuries from attacks. In 2020, more than 100 US troops were diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries stemming from a missile attack by Iran against a base in Iraq.
In another development, a US citizen who says he was tortured in Syrian custody has filed a lawsuit against President Bashar Assad’s government in Washington, seeking accountability when Damascus reconciles in the region. Obada Mzaik, born in Ohio and holds Syrian citizenship, said he hoped to see family when he was detained on arrival at the Damascus airport in January 2012, nearly a year into the brutal civil war. In a lawsuit filed in a federal court in Washington, Mzaik said he was taken to a basement cell with around 10 other people, including a 13-year-old boy who said he had been tortured for more than 80 days.
Mzaik, a student in Syria when protests broke out against Assad, was “brutally and systematically beaten, whipped and threatened with electrocution,” the lawsuit said. “He was held in inhumane detention conditions and forced to witness other detainees being tortured, including one of his relatives,” it said.
Mzaik alleged that interrogators from the Air Force Intelligence Directorate “inflicted severe physical and mental pain” as they sought information on his friends, contacts and interactions with the US government and to “punish him for perceived anti-regime activities.”
The lawsuit said he was released within a month after his family paid bribes through an intermediary. Doctors then treated him for more than a month before he headed to Jordan and then the United States, it said.
Mzaik is seeking unspecified payment as damages from the Syrian government under a US law that says that foreign governments designated as state sponsors of terrorism are exempt from immunity.
The lawsuit was filed in January but unsealed this week. The court documents showed that the Czech Embassy in Damascus, representing US interests in the country, formally informed the government of the lawsuit. While it remains highly unlikely that Assad would pay any damages awarded in a court case, the United States has previously seized and allocated Iranian funds as damages, drawing legal challenges from Tehran’s clerical state.
