U.S. forces struck an Iranian-affiliated militant group in northeast Syria over a 24-hour period, leaving four enemy fighters dead and seven enemy rocket launchers destroyed, U.S. Central Command said in a statement on Thursday.
The latest U.S. attack came from AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, AC-130 gunships, and M777 artillery, CENTCOM added, saying that the operation was in response to Wednesday’s rocket attacks on Mission Support Site Conoco and Mission Support Site Green Village in northeast Syria.
BIDEN ORDERS AIRSTRIKES ON IRAN-BACKED FORCES IN SYRIA
“We will respond appropriately and proportionally to attacks on our service members,” Michael “Erik” Kurilla, commander of U.S. Central Command, said in a statement. “No group will strike at our troops with impunity. We will take all necessary measures to defend our people.”
The attacks began at approximately 7:20 p.m. local time in Syria on Wednesday when several rockets landed inside the perimeter of Mission Support Site Conoco in northeast Syria. Additional rockets landed in the vicinity of Mission Support Site Green Village, CENTCOM said. One U.S. service member in Mission Support Site Conoco was treated for a minor injury and has returned to duty, CENTCOM said Wednesday evening, while two others are under evaluation for minor injuries.
In response, U.S. forces used attack helicopters to destroy three vehicles and equipment used to launch some of the rockets, CENTCOM said on Wednesday, adding that the initial assessment was that there were two or three Iranian combatants killed in the response.
The news comes after the CENTCOM announced President Joe Biden ordered a series of precision strikes on Iran-backed forces in Syria on Tuesday. The airstrikes were ordered in response to an attack on one of its outposts in Syria near its Tanf border; there were no reports of casualties.
“Our forces accomplished their mission of destroying several infrastructure facilities used by militia groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC. The strike was necessary to protect and defend U.S. personnel in Syria, which had been the targets of several recent attacks by Iran-backed militia groups, including the most recent ones on Aug. 15,” Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl told reporters on Wednesday.
“Our response was, I think, extraordinarily carefully calibrated,” he added. “It was meant to be proportional to the attacks that the Iran-backed groups carried out on Aug. 15. It was very precise. We had essentially scoped out 11 bunker targets on this site. We ended up prosecuting nine of them because shortly before the strike, there was new evidence that there might be individuals near two of the other bunkers. So, we held off striking those out of an abundance of caution because our goal was not to produce casualties in this instance.”
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The dust-up comes as the Biden administration continues to push Iran back into a nuclear agreement. After more than 16 months of negotiations, National Security Council strategic communications coordinator John Kirby told reporters on Wednesday that Iran’s decision to abandon several sticking points had created new progress.
Iran has made some concessions “that allowed us to get to where we are in the process … so that’s a positive step forward,” Kirby said, noting that the sides are “closer now than we were even just a couple of weeks ago.”
