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Warplanes target maintenance workers in charge of Syria's Euphrates Dam

Updated: 03 29 , 2017 14:26
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DAMASCUS, March 28 -- Warplanes targeted maintenance workers in charge of the Euphrates Dam in Syria's northern province of Raqqa, a monitor group reported on Tuesday.

Airstrikes, believed to be with the U.S.-led anti-terror coalition, killed Engineer Ahmad Husain and another maintenance worker in the city of Tabqa in the countryside of Raqqa at early time Tuesday, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights at night Tuesday.

Other workers were wounded, and the destiny of them is still unknown, the London-based watchdog group said.

The Euphrates Dam has been rendered out of service as a result of the U.S.-led airstrikes on the facility, amid reports that maintenance workers were supposed to assess the damage to fix that facility.

The dam controls 13 billion square meters of water in the Assad Lake, which derives its water from the Euphrates River.

The dam is 60 meters high and 4.5 kilometers long and is the largest dam in Syria. Its construction led to the creation of Lake Assad, Syria's largest water reservoir.

It was constructed between 1968 and 1973 with help from then the Soviet Union.

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