US Vows to Protect Personnel in Syria after Deadly Attack

A view of the al-Tanf base in Syria. (Reuters file photo)
A view of the al-Tanf base in Syria. (Reuters file photo)
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US Vows to Protect Personnel in Syria after Deadly Attack

A view of the al-Tanf base in Syria. (Reuters file photo)
A view of the al-Tanf base in Syria. (Reuters file photo)

The United States on Friday said it would protect its personnel in Syria after the US military carried out air strikes against Iran-backed forces in retaliation for an attack that killed an American contractor and wounded five US troops.

Just a day after the deadly attack on US personnel in Syria, which Washington blamed on a drone of Iranian origin, sources said a US base in Syria's northeast was targeted with a new missile attack. US officials said there were no US casualties in the incident on Friday.

The latest violence could further aggravate already strained relations between Washington and Tehran amid stalled efforts to revive a nuclear deal and Iran's military support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"We're going to work to protect our people and our facilities as best we can. It's a dangerous environment," White House national security spokesman John Kirby said on CNN.

Although US forces stationed in Syria have been targeted by drones before, fatalities are rare.

The Pentagon said the US strikes by F-15 jets on Thursday targeted facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group that monitors the war in Syria, said the US strikes had killed eight pro-Iranian fighters in Syria.

Reuters was unable to independently confirm the toll.

Iran's state Press TV, which said no Iranian had been killed in the attack, quoted local sources as denying the target was an Iran-aligned military post, but that a rural development center and a grain center near a military airport had been hit.

"We will always take all necessary measures to defend our people and will always respond at a time and place of our choosing," US Army General Erik Kurilla, who oversees American troops in the Middle East, said in a statement.

The US strikes were in response to an attack earlier on Thursday by a drone against US personnel at a coalition base near Hasakah in northeast Syria.

Three service members and a contractor required medical evacuation to Iraq, where the US-led coalition battling the remnants of ISIS has medical facilities, the Pentagon said.

The other two wounded American troops were treated at the base, it said.

On Friday, the Pentagon said the injured personnel were in stable condition.

New attack ‘ineffective’

A US base at the Al-Omar oil field in Syria was targeted with a missile attack on Friday morning, according to Lebanese pro-Iranian TV channel Al Mayadeen and a security source.

Kirby said that attack was ineffective and there were no US casualties.

It is not uncommon for Iranian-backed groups to lob missiles at US bases in Syria after they are hit with airstrikes.

US forces first deployed into Syria during the Obama administration's campaign against ISIS, partnering with a Kurdish-led group called the Syrian Democratic Forces. About 900 US troops are in Syria, most of them in the eastern party of the country.

US troops have come under attack by Iranian-backed groups about 78 times since the beginning of 2021, according to the US military.

The US deployment, which former President Donald Trump nearly ended in 2018 before softening his withdrawal plans, is a remnant of the larger global war against terrorism that had once included the war in Afghanistan and a far larger US military deployment to Iraq.

While ISIS has lost the swathes of Syria and Iraq it ruled over in 2014, sleeper cells still carry out hit-and-run attacks in desolate areas where neither the US-led coalition nor the Syrian army exert full control.



Reports: ISIS Regains Its Activities in Syria

ISIS fighters/file photo (AFP) 
ISIS fighters/file photo (AFP) 
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Reports: ISIS Regains Its Activities in Syria

ISIS fighters/file photo (AFP) 
ISIS fighters/file photo (AFP) 

Recent developments in Syria indicate that the ISIS group has reportedly made a comeback to the country after its presence has deteriorated in the past years.

According to UN and US officials, ISIS has shown renewed vigor in Syria, attracting fighters and increasing attacks, adding to the volatility of a country still reeling since the fall of President Bashar al-Assad, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.

In a proactive step to reduce the immediate risk of the terrorist organization, Washington had roughly doubled the number of its troops on the ground in Syria, to 2,000, and its many strikes on ISIS in the Syrian desert in the last few months appear to have tamped down the immediate threat.

But experts said those measures won’t be enough if the threat of ISIS isn't dealt with at its roots.

They said there is a risk that ISIS can find a way to free thousands of its hardened fighters who are held in prisons guarded by US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces in northeast Syria.

The Times showed that between 9,000 and 10,000 ISIS fighters and about 40,000 of their family members are detained in northeastern Syria. Their escape would not only add to the group’s numbers but also provide a propaganda coup.

“The crown jewel” for ISIS “is still the prisons and camps,” Colin Clarke, the head of research for the Soufan Group, a global intelligence and security firm, told The Times.

Top US intelligence officials last month presented to Congress their annual worldwide threat assessment, concluding that ISIS would try to exploit the end of the Assad government to free prisoners and to revive its ability to plot and carry out attacks.

The US has hopes that the new Syrian government will become a partner against a resurgent ISIS. The initial signs were positive, with the group acting on US-provided intelligence to disrupt eight ISIS plots in Damascus, according to two senior US military officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations.

But sectarian-driven violence last month, in which hundreds of civilians were killed, showed the government’s lack of control over some forces nominally under its command, and it is unclear how much bandwidth it will have to fight ISIS, The Time wrote.

ISIS, which traces its beginnings to Al Qaeda in Iraq, is not a threat from the past anymore. According to a US defense department official who spoke anonymously to discuss information that has not yet been released publicly, the group claimed 294 attacks in 2024, up from the 121 it claimed in 2023. The UN ISIS monitoring committee estimated about 400 attacks, while human rights observers in Syria said the number was even higher.

The group’s resurgence reinforces concerns of renewed bloody scenarios, especially since ISIS exploited the chaos of Syria’s civil war to seize vast swaths of territory and return to Iraq.

The Times said concerns over a possible prison escape by ISIS detainees have been heightened by ongoing violence in the northeast.

The detention centers in northeastern Syria are guarded by the Kurdish-led fighters, the Syrian Democratic Forces, who also help guard the nearby camps that hold ISIS family members. But those forces have been distracted by attacks from Turkish-backed militias.

The prisons have already proven to be a concern. In 2022, nearly 400 ISIS-linked prisoners escaped during an ISIS assault on a prison in the city of Hasaka. At the time, US Special Operations forces helped the Syrian Democratic Forces get control of the situation.

In Al Hol, the largest camp where ISIS women and children have been held for years, the extremist group has been testing the boundaries.

In a recent report, a UN committee said the chaos surrounding the fall of al-Assad allowed some ISIS fighters to escape the camp, although it was not clear how many.

If the Syrian Kurds are weakened, “there is no question that it will create a vacuum,” said Kawa Hassan, an Iraqi analyst and a nonresident fellow at the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan organization in Washington. “And only ISIS thrives in a vacuum.”

A comprehensive strategy that goes beyond airstrikes and the presence of foreign troops is currently needed in Syria. This strategy should address the root causes of the return of extremism to ensure that ISIS will not use prisons and camps to launch its violent activities that has long been the main driver of chaos and destruction in the Middle East.