US hits hard at militias in Iraq and Syria, retaliating for fatal drone attack
Erbil, Iraq — 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.
