Force US agents in desert to break up (8)
I believe the answer is:
fragment
'break up' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'force us agents in desert' is the wordplay.
'force us' becomes 'f' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'agents' becomes 'gmen' (G-Man can mean a US federal agent).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'desert' becomes 'rat' (abandon treacherously).
'gmen' placed within 'rat' is 'ragment'.
'f'+'ragment'='FRAGMENT'
'to' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for fragment that I've seen before include "Broken-off piece" , "Small portion" , "Piece broken off something else" , "Come to pieces" , "Bit" .)