In a statement extremely light on details, Pentagon officials reported that US forces attacked and destroyed short-range rocket launch sites in Syria’s Deir Ezzor Province.
Details of the US strike are not at all clear, as officials would only say that the rocket sites were an “imminent threat” to US forces in nearby Green Village, along the Euphrates River.
The elaboration on that claim is even more vague, as the statement made no specific claim whose launch sites these were, or who had used them in the past. There seemed to be an implied link to Iraqi militias, saying they hadn’t actually determined who was behind recent strikes but was under the working assumption it was ‘Iranian-backed’ militias.
All of this rests on dubious narratives of what the US feels was likely to be the case, and that their own feelings serve as legal pretext for preemptive attacks, themselves to be spun as self-defense.
US Attacks Rocket Launch Sites in Eastern Syria
US claims sites posed an 'imminent threat'
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