Wounded US soldiers in Syria were part of a commando unit

The 22 soldiers injured in a helicopter crash in northeastern Syria on Sunday were part of the army’s top-secret Delta Force commando unit. senior military officials said on Tuesday.

The Pentagon’s Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East and South Asia, said in a terse statement Monday night that “a helicopter crash” in northeastern Syria left nearly two dozen military personnel injured.

The statement said 10 of the soldiers had been evacuated to hospitals outside the region. The command did not say what the commandos were doing when the incident occurred or what might have caused the accident, saying only that no enemy fire had been reported and an investigation was underway.

“We have nothing additional to provide pending the outcome of the investigation,” Major John Moore, a Central Command spokesman, said in an email Tuesday.

But the three military officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation, said on Tuesday an MH-47 Chinook helicopter carrying the commandos crashed in what appeared to be good weather and no enemy fire. It was unclear whether the plane suffered a mechanical failure, pilot error or some other issue, officials said.

The 10 most seriously injured soldiers were airlifted to a US medical hospital in Germany, but none of their injuries were life-threatening, officials said.

More than 900 US troops and several hundred other contractors are stationed in Syria. The troops are working with Kurdish fighters to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State, which was defeated in 2019 as a self-declared caliphate after five years of devastation in Iraq and Syria.

In March, a US contractor was killed and at least six other Americans injured when Iranian-backed militias launched a volley of missiles and drone strikes at coalition bases.