The US Air Force carried out two airstrikes on two targets in Syria that belong to pro-Iranian groups. The agency reported this on November 12 Reuters with reference to a source in the US Department of Defense.
One of the targets of the US Air Force was a command post, and the second was a weapons depot, the agency’s interlocutor added, adding that the strikes took place over the past few hours.
Earlier, on November 9, Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said that US forces in Iraq and Syria have been attacked 46 times since October 17, resulting in 56 casualties. In addition, he added that US military bases have been attacked at least 41 times using missiles and attack unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
US Assistant Secretary of Defense Barbara Leaf said attacks on US bases in the Middle East pose a direct threat to US national security interests in the Red Sea.
Singh said on November 7 that the United States does not see significant damage from increased attacks on its forces in the Middle East. According to her, the US blames the attacks on groups associated with Iran, and explains their intensification by the conflict in the Gaza Strip.
On October 31, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin announced the department’s readiness to take action if Iranian-backed attacks on US forces in the Middle East do not stop.
On October 26, Russian Ambassador to Iraq Elbrus Kutrashev commented in an interview with Izvestia on the attacks of the Islamic Resistance of Iraq – a movement that includes Shiite fighters who previously fought against the militants of the Islamic State group (IS, an organization recognized as terrorist and banned in the Russian Federation) – to US military bases in Syria. He said that these actions are more like a show of force. According to him, confrontation has always occurred, since some Iraqi armed groups do not legally recognize the US military presence in Iraq.
Attacks on American bases in the Middle East have become more frequent amid the escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, in which the United States supported Israel.
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