Monday, February 5, 2024

Iran-backed group kills U.S. allies in Syria amid high-stakes tit-for-tat


Iran-backed group kills U.S. allies in Syria amid high-stakes tit-for-tat
Holly Williams, Omar Abdulkader



An Iran-backed militia group in Iraq claimed responsibility Monday for a drone strike against a base in eastern Syria used by U.S. troops that killed six American-allied Kurdish fighters. The attack, which caused no American casualties, appeared to be the first significant response from what the U.S. calls Iran's proxy groups to U.S. airstrikes against the militias in the region.

On Friday, the U.S. started striking the militias of an umbrella group known as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq in response to those groups' stepped-up attacks on U.S. bases in the region — including the deadly drone strike on a base in Jordan that killed three U.S. service members on Jan. 28.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said Monday that a drone struck a training ground the previous night at the al-Omar base in Syria's eastern province of Deir el-Zour. The SDF trains commandos there, and some of the roughly 900 U.S. troops deployed in Syria as part of the ongoing mission against ISIS have been based there. 

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq released a video claiming responsibility for the attack that included purported images of the drone being launched from an unspecified location.

With its strikes over the weekend against the militias in Iraq and Syria — and ongoing strikes against the Houthi rebels in Yemen who've been targeting ships in the Red Sea for months — the U.S. has continued its retaliation against Iran's affiliates across a wide geographical area. All those groups say they've been attacking U.S. and Israeli interests in solidarity with Palestinians, as Israel continues its war against Hamas, which is also backed by Iran, in the Gaza Strip.

The U.S. and the U.K. launched strikes against 36 Houthi targets late Saturday, targeting missile launch and radar systems in the large portion of Yemen controlled by the Shiite Muslim rebels.






No comments:

Post a Comment