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The United States Central Command (CENTCOM) announced on November 12 that it had launched strikes against an Iranian-backed faction’s weapons storage and logistics headquarters facility in Syria.
The strikes were carried out in response to a rocket attack on U.S. personnel at Patrol Base Shaddadi, the command said in a statement, noting that there was no damage to U.S. facilities and no injuries to U.S. or partner forces during the attack.
The strikes will degrade the Iranian backed groups’ ability to plan and launch future attacks on U.S. and Coalition forces who are in the region to conduct operations against ISIS, the command added.
“We have made it clear that attacks on U.S. personnel, partner forces and facilities will not be tolerated and that we retain the right to defend ourselves. U.S. Central Command, alongside our regional partners, will aggressively pursue any threat to US forces, allies, partners, and security in the region,” said General Michael Erik Kurilla, CENTCOM commander.
This was not the first wave of U.S. strikes to hit Syria this week. Just a day earlier, Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Major General Pat Ryder said that CENTCOM launched strikes against nine targets in two locations associated with Iranian-backed factions in Syria in response to two attacks at Mission Support Site Green Village.
One of those attacks involved a drone, while the second attack involved an indirect fire incident with two rockets. Ryder said that there were no U.S. injuries involved with either attack.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that recent U.S. strikes targeted sites located between the towns of al-Mayadin and al-Bukamal in the southern countryside of Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria.
The first wave of strikes on November 11 killed four Iranian-backed fighters, according to the London-based pro-opposition monitoring group, which reported the death of five more fighters in the second wave of strikes on November 12.
The U.S. maintains some 900 troops in Syria under the pretext of fighting ISIS, most of whom are deployed at key gas and oil fields in Deir Ezzor and neighboring al-Hasakah.
Patrol Base Shaddadi is located right next to a gas field near the town of al-Shaddadi in the southern al-Hasakah countryside, while Mission Support Site Green Village is located within al-Omar oil fields in the southeastern countryside of Deir Ezzor.
Attacks targeting U.S. forces in Syria and Iraq escalated after the outbreak of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip last year, with the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iranian-backed factions, claiming responsibility for most of the attacks. The group didn’t however take credit for the latest attacks in Syria which came amid an Israeli escalation against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
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