SULAIMANI (ESTA) — The U.S.-led Coalition forces on Monday confirmed a rocket attack on the American troops stationed in Syria, in apparent retaliation for weekend U.S. air strikes against Iran-aligned militia in Syria and Iraq.
Coalition Spokesman Col. Wayne Marotto said in a tweet that the U.S. forces were attacked by multiple rockets in Syria at 07:44 p.m. local time.
“There are no injuries and damage is being assessed,” he added.
Sources in Deir al Zor, in eastern Syria, told Reuters that an Iranian-backed militia group had fired a few artillery rounds in the vicinity of al Omar oil field, which is controlled by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The coalition spokesman said a few hours later that the U.S. forces acted in “self-defense and conducted counter-battery artillery fire at rocket launching positions”.
The rocket fire underscored the risk of escalation and the limits of U.S. military firepower to restrain Iran-aligned militias that Washington blames for a series of increasingly sophisticated drone strikes against U.S. personnel and facilities in Iraq.
Hours earlier, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the White House had defended the U.S. strikes in Iraq and Syria on Sunday as a way to tamp down on the risk of conflict.
“We took necessary, appropriate, deliberate action that is designed to limit the risk of escalation, but also to send a clear and unambiguous deterrent message,” Blinken told reporters in Rome.
Iraqi militia groups aligned with Iran in a statement named four members of the Kataib Sayyed al-Shuhada faction they said were killed in the attack on the Syria-Iraq border. They vowed to retaliate.
But it was not immediately unclear who fired the latest salvo at U.S. forces.
It was the second time President Joe Biden had ordered retaliatory strikes against Iran-backed militia since taking office five months ago. He ordered limited strikes in Syria in February, that time in response to rocket attacks in Iraq.
*This story was updated at 12:25 a.m. (EBL time) on Tuesday
