Three US soldiers were lightly wounded in Syria in an attack on Wednesday that killed “two or three suspected Iran-backed militants,” United States Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed in a statement on Wednesday.
CENTCOM said that the US responded “to rocket attacks at two sites in Syria, destroying three vehicles and equipment used to launch some of the rockets,” where the fighting occurred.
Earlier, a US government official told NBC News that an unknown number of US service members were injured in two separate rocket attacks on facilities housing American troops in Syria.
- The injuries were “minor”, the official said, and reports about how many people were injured are still coming in.
The locations at Conoco and Green Village, both in northeastern Syria, began taking rocket fire Wednesday afternoon. It is not clear whether either location sustained damage to structures or equipment.
The US responded to the rocket fire with strikes from Apache attack helicopters, targeting at least three vehicles and killing several people believed to be responsible for firing the rockets.
The attacks began around 7:20 p.m. local time in Syria. The entire incident, including the attacks and the US military response, lasted about two hours, according to NBC News.
It is not yet known which group was behind the attacks.
The incident came hours after the US military said it carried out a strike in Syria’s Deir al-Zor against infrastructure facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
The military’s Central Command said in a statement such strikes were aimed at protecting US forces from attack by Iran-backed groups.
The strikes were carried out at the direction of President Joe Biden, Col. Joe Buccino, the communication director for Central Command, said in a statement.
There are not believed to have been any casualties in the strikes, which hit nine bunkers used for storage, a US military official told NBC News. The bunkers were described as ammunition depots and logistics supply facilities.
Though there is no indication of any connection, the US announcement came a day after Iranian media outlets reported that Abolfazl Alijani, a senior member of the IRGC who served as a military adviser in Syria, had been killed.
While Iranian leaders deny that the Islamic Republic has a military presence in Syria, Iran is a key supporter of the Assad regime in Syria, having providing the regime with both financial aid and military advisers against a range of opposing forces since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011.
Near the start of the Syrian civil war, it was reported that then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had personally sanctioned the dispatch of officers from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to Syria to fight alongside Assad’s troops.
Source: Arutz Sheva