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A United States military base in the eastern Syrian governorate of Deir Ezzor came under attack late on August 13, with no reports of losses.
Citing a security source, Reuters reported that Iran-backed forces targeted the U.S. base, which is located at the Conoco gas plant in the eastern Deir Ezzor countryside, with six shells, all of which fell in the vicinity of the base. The source added that the U.S.-led coalition responded to the attack with artillery.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based pro-opposition monitoring group, confirmed that retaliatory artillery strikes hit Iran-backed forces in the western countryside of the governorate.
A U.S. official also told Reuters the projectiles did not hit the base and there were no injuries. The unnamed official cited initial reports that can change.
The Conoco base is one of several military installations the U.S. maintains in Syria, mainly in Deir Ezzor, the neighboring northeastern governorate of al-Hasakah as well as in the southeastern area of al-Tanf, under the pretext of fighting ISIS remnants. At least 900 troops are deployed there.
U.S. forces in Syria and neighboring Iraq were attacked with drones and rockets more than 180 times after the outbreak of the Israeli war on the Palestinian Gaza Strip last October, with the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI), an umbrella group of Iran-backed forces, claiming responsibility for most of the attacks.
The group suspended attacks against U.S. forces last February after the death of three American troops in a drone strike on a base in Jordan, reportedly upon a request from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to facilitate talks on a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. However, several attacks hit U.S. bases recently.
The attack on the Conoco ase came just a few days after U.S. troops were wounded in two separate attacks in Iraq and Syria, which were both blamed on the IRI.
Five U.S. troops were wounded in a rocket attack that targeted Ain al-Asad Air Base in the western Iraqi province of al-Anbar on August 5. Eight more troops were wounded on August 9 when a suicide drone struck a U.S. base near the town of Khrab al-Jir in the northeastern Syrian governorate of al-Hasakah.
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