The U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS in Syria said Tuesday they had foiled an attack in the Deir-ez-Zor region in the northeast of the country, a day after the second anniversary of the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.
After spotting “several launch sites of indirect fire rockets that posed an imminent threat,” coalition forces “conducted strikes to eliminate the threat,” a coalition official said in a statement.
The attack was aimed at a U.S. base called “Green Village” in the Euphrates Valley where fighters from ISIS are still active and where U.S. forces continue to cooperate alongside the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
“Indirect fire attacks pose a serious threat to innocent civilians because of their lack of discrimination” and the coalition “reserves the right to defend itself” added the official.
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Asked about who might be behind the attack, the third in less than 48 hours in the region after others targeting the Ain al-Assad airbase on Tuesday in western Iraq and Baghdad international airport on Monday, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said he could not identify them.
“I’m not in a position now to get into specific attribution,” he said. “That said, we continue to see threats against our forces in Iraq and Syria by militia groups that are backed by Iran.”
None of the attacks resulted in casualties but came as Iraq marked the second anniversary of the U.S. assassination of Soleimani, the architect of Iranian strategy in the Middle East, and his Iraqi lieutenant, killed by drone fire in Iraq on January 3, 2020.
Some 900 U.S. troops remain deployed in northeastern Syria and at the al-Tanf base in the south, on the borders of Iraq and Jordan.
This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
