Two U.S. soldiers injured in attack on Air Force base in Syria

Two US soldiers suffered minor injuries after a rocket strike on a base in eastern Syria – an attack which a war monitor and a tribal source said was carried out by Iran-backed militias. 

A pair of shells fell on the base in Green Village, Syria, on Thursday. The base is used to train local forces to fight against what remains of the Islamic State.

One of the soldiers was treated for a traumatic brain injury and the second was treated for minor injuries, according to a since-deleted tweet from the Special Operations Joint Task Force-Levant, which oversees the U.S. led forces in the region.

An anonymous American official told the Reuters that both soldiers have been cleared and returned to duty.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, though its comes amidst years of continued violence against U.S. forces by Iranian-backed militias. 

A tribal source in the area said several rockets were fired by an Iran-backed militia, and two landed in the area of al Omar oil field where U.S. forces are based in Deir al-Zor province, near the Iraqi border.

The rockets were launched from an area west of the Euphrates River, where Iran-backed militias have a presence, the source said.  

U.S. forces have deployed into Syria during the campaign against Islamic State, partnering with a Kurdish-led group called the Syrian Democratic Forces. Iran-backed militias have established a foothold in Syria while fighting in support of President Bashar al-Assad during the country’s 11-year-long war. 

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rockets had been fired after midnight at the base from an area where Iran-backed militias exercise influence.

The Observatory, a UK-based organisation that reports on the war in Syria using what it describes as sources on all sides of the conflict, said the U.S.-led forces returned fire.

This is the first attack on an American base since March, where a missile strike landed near an American consulate in Erbil, Iraq.

No US personnel were harmed in that assault, but in a rare move Iranian forces claimed credit for the attack.

In October a U.S. base in Al-Tanf, Syria, used for training local forces against ISIS was hit by a coordinated drone and ground fire attack.

All personnel were unharmed after the attack on the base, which is located on a road that is vital to Iranian-backed forces in the region.

In January of 2020 the US attempted to temper Iranian-backed violence in the region with an airstrike that targeted and killed Qasem Soleimani, the mastermind behind Iran’s paramilitary operations in Iraq and Syria. 

About 2,500 U.S. military personnel remain deployed in Iraq and 900 in Syria with the aim of training local forces to combat ISIS.