The US military announced on Monday that it launched multiple strikes against “Iranian-aligned” targets in Syria, referring to Shia militias that are allied with Iran.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) claimed in a press release that the strikes were launched in retaliation for attacks on its personnel in the region, although there have been no recent reports of any attacks that have damaged US bases or harmed US troops.
“Today, US CENTCOM forces conducted strikes against nine targets in two locations associated with Iranian groups in Syria in response to several attacks on US personnel in Syria over the last 24 hours,” CENTCOM said in a press release.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that four members of Iran-aligned Shia militias were killed and nine were wounded by airstrikes launched by the “International Coalition,” referring to the US-led coalition in Iraq and Syria. The SOHR’s figures are not confirmed, and their casualty figures often change.
The SOHR said the strikes were launched against targets in two areas of eastern Syria’s Deir Ezzor province. The US has about 900 troops illegally occupying eastern Syria and backs the Kurdish-led SDF, giving the US control of a significant portion of Syrian territory.
The US airstrikes come amid soaring tensions in the region as Iran is vowing it will respond to recent Israeli airstrikes on its territory. Media reports have said Iran was planning to launch an attack from Iraqi territory that would be coordinated with Iraqi Shia militias, although Baghdad denied the claims. The US is vowing to defend Israel from any Iranian attack, which makes US military assets in the region potential targets of Iranian missiles.
From October 2023 until February of this year, US bases in Iraq and Syria came under hundreds of rocket and drone attacks due to US support for Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza. After three US troops were killed in an attack on Tower 22, a secretive base in Jordan on the Syrian border, Iran and the Iraqi government pressured the militias to stop, and the attacks have been less frequent since February.
Since October 2023, President Biden has ordered multiple rounds of airstrikes against the Shia militias that operate in Iraq and Syria, which include members of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a wing of Iraq’s security forces. Iraq strongly opposed the US bombings of the PMF and called for an end to the US-led coalition. The Biden administration refused to leave and instead negotiated a deal to officially end the mission of the coalition by September 2025 that allows US troops to remain under a different arrangement.