A drone attack late Sunday evening that struck a military base in eastern Syria, where U.S. troops are stationed, left at least six allied Kurdish soldiers dead, officials said.
The attack hit a training ground at al-Omar base in Syria’s eastern province of Deir el-Zour, the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said in a statement Monday.
According to the statement, the drone attack struck an area where the forces’ commando units were being trained. No U.S. troops were killed or injured in the attack, they said.
The strike was the first significant attack in Syria or Iraq since the U.S. launched strikes over the weekend against Iran-backed militias. Militia fighters have been carrying out assaults on U.S. forces and civilian targets in the region since the breakout of the Israel-Hamas war in October.
The SDF initially blamed “Syrian regime-backed mercenaries” for Sunday’s attack, but after investigating the attack, they accused “Iran-backed militias.”
The Islamic Resistance, an umbrella group of all Iran-backed Iraqi militias in the country, claimed responsibility for Sunday’s attack and released a video they claim showed them launching the drone used in the attack.
Sunday’s attack came after the U.S. military carried out strikes against Houthi militant targets in Yemen over the weekend. U.S. Central Command forces said Sunday they conducted a “self-defense” strike against a Houthi land attack cruise missile at approximately 5:30 a.m. Sanaa time.
Later, at approximately 10:30 a.m., U.S. forces struck four anti-ship cruise missiles in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, which they determined “presented an imminent threat to U.S. Navy ships and merchant vessels” in the Red Sea.
