Iranian-backed militias shell U.S. base in Syria

No casualties reported; Centcom warns of rising drone attacks on U.S. forces.

By World Israel News Staff

A U.S. military base in the eastern Syrian province of Deir ez-Zor was shelled by pro-Iranian militias on Monday night, one day after U.S. air strikes hit facilities belonging to the Shiite terror groups.

Voice of America reported that the rockets were fired at an isolated outpost known as the Green Village, which is located next to the Al-Omar oil field.

“U.S. Forces in Syria, while under multiple rocket attack, acted in self-defense and conducted counter-battery artillery fire at rocket launching positions,” U.S. Colonel Wayne Marotto, the spokesman for the international military intervention against Islamic State, wrote on Twitter. Approximately 900 U.S. personnel are deployed in Syria for ongoing missions against Islamic State as part of Operation Inherent Resolve.

Syria’s state-controlled news agency, SANA, reported that “missiles… targeted a military base of the US occupation forces in the Al-Omar oil field.”

The attack came one day after U.S. air strikes on facilities along the Syria-Iraq border belonging to pro-Iranian militias, including Kata’ib Hezbollah and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada. Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said the strikes hit three operational and weapons storage facilities — two in Syria and one in Iraq. Four militia members were killed in those strikes.

The strike was prompted by a rising number of drone attacks on U.S. personnel in Syria and Iraq. Centcom Commander Gen. Frank McKenzie told Voice America in a June 15 interview, “There are a lot of drones in Iraq. Some of them are indigenous. Some of them came from Iran. We’re certain of that.”

There was no indication that Sunday’s attacks were meant as the start of a wider, sustained U.S. air campaign in the border region.

Sunday’s airstrike was the second ordered by the Biden administration. In February, U.S. forces hit a cluster of buildings on the Syria-Iraq border belonging to the same militias in response to a rocket attack on American personnel in Iraq that killed a Filipino contractor.

Associated Press contributed to this report.