ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Unidentified aircraft on Friday hit several locations in eastern Syria, according to a conflict watchdog. ABC News reported American strikes in the Middle East in response to a deadly attack on United States troops in Jordan.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) told Rudaw on Friday that “unidentified” aircraft hit several sites in Deir ez-Zor.
According to ABC News, citing an American official, the US on Friday began retaliatory strikes against Iran-backed militias in the Middle East, but did not report any specific location.
The US this week has been preparing to respond to a drone strike last Sunday that killed at least three service members at an American military base in northeast Jordan, near the Syrian border. Washington has blamed the pro-Iran Islamic Resistance in Iraq for the attack.
The United States is not at war with any group in the Middle East, but is protecting its troops in the region, a State Department spokesperson said on Friday.
The US National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby said on Tuesday that an American response to the Jordan attack will include “multiple actions.”
"It's very possible that what you'll see is a tiered approach here, not just a single action but potentially multiple actions," Kirby told reporters aboard Air Force One, AFP reported.
Around 2,500 American troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria are leading an international coalition through Operation Inherent Resolve that has assisted Kurdish, Iraqi, and local Syrian forces in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS), which once held swathes of land in Iraq and Syria but was declared territorially defeated in 2019.
There have been over 165 attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria since mid-October, according to the Pentagon.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a network of shadow Iraqi militia groups affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has claimed responsibility for most of the recent attacks, linking them to US support for Israel in its war in Gaza.
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