The US military announced on Tuesday that it launched a strike in Syria against an “Iranian-aligned target,” marking at least the third time this month the US has bombed Syria.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) said the strike targeted “an Iranian-aligned militia weapons storage facility,” referring to Shia militias that operate in Syria. The command said the bombing came after a US base in Syria came under attack.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported the strike, saying US forces based at the al-Omar oil field in eastern Syria’s Deir Ezzor province launched missiles at “positions of Iran-backed militias.” SOHR said no casualties were reported in the US strike.
A day earlier, reports said a US occupation base in al-Shaddadi in the northeastern al-Hasakah province came under attack. There were no reports of any US casualties, and it’s unclear if any damage was done.
Earlier this month, the US launched two rounds of strikes against the Shia militias. SOHR said nine militia members were killed in the two bombings, but those numbers haven’t been confirmed.
The US has about 900 troops in eastern Syria as part of an illegal military occupation and backs the Kurdish-led SDF, allowing the US to control a significant portion of Syrian territory. US troops in Syria and the 2,500 US soldiers in Iraq are vulnerable to attack and could be a tripwire for a wider war.
From October 2023 until February of this year, US bases in Iraq and Syria came under hundreds of rocket and drone attacks due to US support for Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza. After three US troops were killed in an attack on Tower 22, a secretive base in Jordan on the Syrian border, Iran and the Iraqi government pressured the militias to stop, and the attacks have been less frequent since February.
