clear

Creating new perspectives since 2009

6 US-backed Kurdish fighters killed in drone attack on US base in Syria

February 5, 2024 at 12:51 pm

US forces and members of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) patrol the Kurdish-held town of Al-Darbasiyah in northeastern Syria bordering Turkey on 4 November 2018 [DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP/Getty Images]

US-backed Kurdish-led forces said today that six of their fighters had been killed in an explosive drone attack by armed groups that came from areas of Syria’s Deir Ez-Zor under the control of the Syrian government, Reuters reports.

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) conducted airstrikes against targets belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and affiliated militias in Syria [Selçuk Uysal/Anadolu Agency]

Farhad Shami, a spokesperson for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), said in a post on X that the drone struck an SDF commando academy at a US base at Al-Omar oilfield, resulting “in the martyrdom of six of our Commando fighters.”

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq – an umbrella group of several Iran-backed Iraqi armed groups – today claimed responsibility for a drone attack on Al-Omar field, saying it launched yesterday’s attack.

Washington blames the group for a drone attack on a US outpost in Jordan earlier this month that killed three American forces. The US launched dozens of strikes over the weekend in Iraq and Syria, killing about 40 people.

The Iraqi Foreign Ministry responded by recalling the US Chargé d’Affaires in Baghdad, to hand him an official note of protest regarding “the attack that targeted military and civilian sites” in the country.

READ: Biden puts pressure on Netanyahu to accept long truce in exchange for Saudi normalisation