Reuters reported this week that Washington was preparing for the move to help enable a security pact it is brokering between Syria’s HTS-led regime and Israel. Six sources were quoted in the report, according to the UAE’s The National.

The airbase in the capital would sit at the gateway to southern parts of the country expected to make up a demilitarised zone as part of a US-mediated non-aggression pact between Israel and Syria, Reuters said. It said it spoke to sources including two western officials and a Syrian defence official, who confirmed the US was planning to use the base to help monitor a potential Israel-Syria agreement.

On Thursday, an official source at the Syrian HTS-led regime’s ministry described the news as “false”, in a report by state news agency Sana. “

DID