The death toll from US airstrikes targeting pro-Iranian groups in Syria in response to a deadly drone attack has risen to 19, an NGO said on Saturday, with the US insisting it will not did not seek to enter into conflict with Tehran.
A previous assessment given by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH) had reported 14 deaths in these strikes that occurred overnight from Thursday to Friday in eastern Syria, a country at war since 2011.
Washington said it carried out the strikes after Thursday’s attack by an “Iranian-origin” drone on a US-led international coalition base near Hassakeh in northeastern Syria, which caused the death of an American contractor. Another contractor and five soldiers were injured.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said he ordered, on the instructions of President Joe Biden, “precision airstrikes […] against facilities used by groups affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard Corps”, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
“American Lies”
In a statement on Saturday, the Syrian Foreign Ministry denounced “American lies about the targeted sites”. For Damascus, it is a “vain attempt to justify an act of aggression and a flagrant violation of the sovereignty of Syria”, he added.
On Saturday, the OSDH, based in Britain and having an extensive network of sources in Syria, indicated that 19 people had been killed in the American strikes: three soldiers of the Syrian regime and 16 members of the forces supported by the Iran, including 11 Syrian nationals.
After the strikes, Joe Biden said the United States “is not looking [aient] not the conflict with Iran, but [étaient] ready to act with force to protect their people”.
On Friday, ten more rockets were fired at US forces and the coalition at the Green Village base in northeastern Syria, according to the US military command for the Middle East (Centcom).
These attacks caused no coalition injuries or damage, but a rocket that hit a house nearly five kilometers from the base caused “significant damage”, “slightly wounding two women and two children”, American captain Abigail Hammock told AFP.
Later on Friday, Iran-backed militias targeted a base in the Conoco gas field, prompting an air strike from coalition forces on targets in the town of Deir Ezzor, it said. the OSDH.
“Precarious calm”
Rocket fire then targeted coalition installations in the Al-Omar oilfield base and in the countryside east of Deir Ezzor, “causing material damage”, added the OSDH. A “precarious calm” returned to the Deir Ezzor region on Saturday morning, according to the same source.
Several hundred American soldiers are in Syria, within a coalition fighting against cells of the jihadist group Islamic State (IS). They are frequently targeted by militias.
US troops are supporting the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which led the battle to oust IS from the last territories it controlled in Syria in 2019.
In August 2022, the US president ordered similar retaliatory strikes in the oil-rich province of Deir Ezzor after a coalition outpost was attacked by multiple drones, which left no casualties. .
Tehran, an ally of Damascus in the war in Syria, says it has deployed forces in this country at the request of Bashar al-Assad, but only as advisers.
The Revolutionary Guards are on the list of terrorist entities of the United States.
On several occasions, the international coalition has admitted to carrying out strikes in eastern Syria against pro-Iranian fighters. Israel also regularly carries out strikes there but rarely claims them.