WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden ordered airstrikes against “facilities utilised by Iranian-backed militias” in eastern Syria on Tuesday, according to a US military spokeswoman.
According to Central Command (Centcom) spokesman Colonel Joe Buccino, the attacks in the oil-rich Deir Ezzor region “targeted infrastructure sites used by forces linked with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.”
The “precise strikes are intended to guard and protect US forces from attacks like the ones on August 15 on US personnel by Iran-backed elements,” according to Buccino. At that time, a number of drones struck an outpost of US-led anti-jihadist forces without resulting in any casualties.
The colonel independently told CNN that nine bunkers in a complex used for munitions storage and logistics were destroyed by Tuesday’s airstrikes.According to him, the US military had planned to attack 11 out of the complex’s 13 bunkers, but decided against doing so after seeing groups of people close to two of them. He said that preliminary findings suggested no one had been harmed.
According to the Centcom statement, US forces “took appropriate, deliberate action intended to limit the danger of escalation and lessen the chance of deaths.”
The United States does not seek out confrontation, but it will keep taking the necessary steps to defend and protect its citizens. As part of a coalition battling to expel the violent Islamic State organisation from Syria, hundreds of American soldiers have been stationed in the northeastern region of the country.
Syrian official media did not immediately confirm the US airstrikes.A Revolutionary Guard officer “who was on a mission in Syria as a military consultant” had died on Sunday, according to earlier reports in Iranian state media.
The general was referred to in the sources as a “defender of the sanctuary,” which is an euphemism for individuals who represent Iran in Syria or Iraq, but the reports did not specify how he was murdered.
