US troops in Syria attacked after airstrikes on militias; no injuries reported

A day after US Air Force planes carried out airstrikes near the Iraq-Syria border on what the Pentagon said were facilities used by Iran-backed militia groups to enable drone strikes inside Iraq, US forces in eastern Syria came under rocket attack on Monday, June 28, with no reported injuries.

The Iraqi military has condemned the US bombings, while militia groups have urged retaliation against the US. The militias were exploiting the facilities to launch unmanned aerial vehicle strikes against US soldiers in Iraq, according to Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby. It was the administration's second military intervention in the region since Biden took office earlier this year.

Rocket attack on US forces

There was no indication that the assaults on Sunday were intended to be the start of a longer-term US air campaign in the border region. However, Col. Wayne Marotto, a spokesperson for the US military mission in Baghdad, stated on Twitter Monday that “U.S. forces in Syria were attacked by multiple rockets” at 7:44 pm (local time). He stated that there were no injuries and that the damage caused by the attack was being analyzed. Marotto later tweeted that, while under rocket attack, US forces in Syria used artillery at the rocket-launching sites in self-defense.

Three operational and weapon storage facilities, two in Syria and one in Iraq, were struck by the US military, according to Kirby. The Pentagon characterised one target as a coordination hub for the shipment and transfer of advanced conventional weapons in videos released of the strikes by Air Force F-15 and F-16 planes. Kirby described the airstrikes as "defensive", claiming they were undertaken in reaction to militia violence.

Kirby said, "The United States took necessary, appropriate, and deliberate action designed to limit the risk of escalation — but also to send a clear and unambiguous deterrent message."

US troops in Syria attacked 

The facilities were reportedly utilized by Iran-backed militia groups like Kata'ib Hezbollah and Kata'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, according to the Pentagon. The facilities were reportedly utilized by Iran-backed militia groups like as Kata'ib Hezbollah and Kata'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, according to the Pentagon. Navy Cmdr. Jessica McNulty, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said Monday that each missile struck its intended target and that the US military was still evaluating the operation's findings.

The facilities were reportedly utilized by Iran-backed militia groups like Kata'ib Hezbollah and Kata'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, according to the Pentagon.  Navy Cmdr. Jessica McNulty, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said Monday that each missile struck its intended target and that the US military was still evaluating the operation's findings. 

However, four Iraqi militiamen were killed in airstrikes near the Syrian border, according to two Iraqi militia leaders in Baghdad. According to them, the first strike targeted a weapons storage site on Syrian soil, where the fighters were killed. The second strike connected with the board. At least seven Iraqi militiamen were killed in the airstrikes, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based group that closely monitors the Syrian conflict through activists on the ground. 

Since a US-directed drone killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani near the Baghdad airport last year, US military authorities have grown increasingly concerned about drone strikes targeting US military locations in Iraq. The bombing also killed Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. The incident enraged Iraqi MPs, who are primarily Shiites, and spurred parliament to vote a nonbinding resolution pressuring the Iraqi government to remove foreign soldiers from the country.

(with inputs from AP)

Picture Credit: AP