Airstrikes on Eastern Syria Kill Six Iran-Backed Militants

Strikes follow claims of an attack on a U.S. military base by the Islamic Resistance, an Iran-backed Iraqi militant group.

Three overnight airstrikes on eastern Syria near the Iraqi border resulted in the death of six Iran-backed militants, four of whom were from Lebanon's Hezbollah group and the other two were Syrian.
The strikes occurred hours after an umbrella group of Iran-backed Iraqi militants, known as the Islamic Resistance, claimed an attack on a U.S. military base in the city of Irbil in northern Iraq.
The airstrikes targeted two militant posts, a weapons warehouse recently stocked with rocket launchers and munitions, a militants' convoy that had arrived from Iraq to Syria, and a location where a militia affiliated with Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard was training.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the strikes killed nine people, three Syrians and six people from other nationalities.
The Boukamal region in Deir el-Zour, Syria, along the Iraqi border, has been a strategic area for Iran-backed militants since it was taken back from the extremist Islamic State group in 2019.