Military Bases Housing U.S. Forces Attacked in Syria and Iraq
Rockets and indirect fire struck bases hosting U.S.-led military coalition forces in Iraq and Syria in at least three separate attacks Wednesday, the third day in a row that Iran-aligned paramilitary groups have targeted America and its partners in the Middle East.
The latest spate of attacks started on Monday as the militias marked the second anniversary of the American strike that killed senior Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in January 2020. Iran and its allies in the region have sworn to avenge Gen. Soleimani’s death by attacking U.S. forces and driving the American military out of the region.
None of the attacks have caused any casualties or major damage, but the persistence of the rocket and drone attacks raises the risk of a broader conflagration.
“The coalition reserves the right to defend itself and partner forces against any threat,” said Maj. Gen. John W. Brennan Jr., the commander of the U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq and Syria.
A small military base in northeastern Syria hosting U.S.-backed Syrian and coalition forces came under eight rounds of indirect fire, causing minor damage within the base but no casualties, according to the coalition. Coalition forces responded with six rounds of artillery fire, it said.
The coalition blamed the attack on the base, known as Green Village, on “Iran-supported malign actors.”
In Iraq, at least two separate attacks targeted bases used by the coalition. Early Wednesday, a rocket struck an Iraqi military base used by U.S. forces near Baghdad’s international airport, according to Iraqi officials. Iraqi security officials also said they seized a 240 mm rocket and a launcher that hadn’t been fired from a neighborhood near the airport.
Later on Wednesday, five rockets were fired in the vicinity of Ayn al-Assad, an Iraqi military base that hosts U.S. forces, according to the coalition and Iraqi security forces. The five rounds of indirect fire landed far from the base, with the nearest impact a bit over one mile from the base, according to coalition officials.
A militia calling itself Saraya Qasem al-Jabarin claimed responsibility for the attack near Ayn al-Assad in a statement on Wednesday night. Major Iran-backed militias have used smaller front groups to claim attacks in the past, according to Western and Iraqi officials.
The American military has been increasingly drawn into cycles of violence with Iranian-backed paramilitary groups in recent years. The slow-burning conflict peaked in 2020 after the U.S. killed Gen. Soleimani and an Iraqi militia leader.
The U.S. has about 2,500 soldiers stationed in Iraq and 900 in Syria working with local forces in the continuing fight to suppress Islamic State, the extremist group that seized control of a swath of both countries in 2014. After years of American, Iraqi and Syrian military operations, the group lost control of its territory but survives as an insurgent group carrying out hit-and-run attacks.
The U.S. ended its combat role in Iraq in the fight against Islamic State at the end of 2021 as part of an agreement with the Iraqi government. Most U.S. soldiers in Iraq were already engaged in training and support roles and so they remained in the country.
In a speech in the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Tuesday, the leader of one of the Iran-aligned militias, Harakat al-Nujaba, vowed to continue the fight to expel American forces from the country.
“There will be no new truce and there is no other way except using military force to expel them from the country in coffins,” said Akram al-Kaabi, the militia leader.
