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A drone strike on a military base hosting US troops in Syria has killed at least six allied Syrian fighters, the first major strike since Washington launched retaliatory strikes against Iran-aligned militias accused of targeting its forces in the area.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a shadowy Iranian-backed militia group that the United States has blamed for the killing of three of its soldiers last month, claimed responsibility for the latest assault in the early hours of Monday, which hit a training facility at the al-Omar oil field inside a U.S. military complex.
The group, which released a video Monday taking responsibility for the attack, has claimed more than 160 attacks against U.S. troops since mid-October and has repeatedly called for the removal of U.S. forces from the region.
The Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces, key allies in the US-led coalition fighting the remnants of the Islamic militant group Isis, blamed “Iran-backed militias” for the latest attack.
The SDF said the drone used in Monday’s attack was launched from Deir Ezzor province in eastern Syria, an area controlled by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Iran. The SDF “affirm our right to respond appropriately”, it said in a statement.
No U.S. casualties were reported, but the attack will raise fears that Washington will be drawn deeper into a widening regional conflict triggered by the war between Israel and Hamas. Last week, an IRI leadership team said it would stop attacks on U.S. forces.
The IRI is part of Iran’s so-called Axis of Resistance, which includes Iranian-backed militants such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Houthi rebels in Yemen. These groups have launched a series of attacks against Israel since the start of the Jewish state’s war in Gaza, triggered by Hamas’ October 7 assault on southern Israel.
Three US soldiers were killed and 41 wounded in a drone attack on an American base on the Jordan-Syria border late last month. Washington blamed the attack on the IRI and over the weekend launched a wave of retaliatory strikes on 85 targets in seven facilities linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and its network of aligned militant groups in Iraq and Syria. It also hit Houthi rebels in Yemen.
The Biden administration has warned it will continue to target Iran-aligned militants, while senior officials in Washington and Tehran have repeatedly said they want to avoid a full-blown regional conflict.