Six SDF fighters killed in pro-Iran attack on US Syria base

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Six fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were killed Monday in a drone strike carried out by Iran-affiliated militias on a US base in Syria’s eastern Deir ez-Zor province, the Kurdish-led force announced. 

“Six of our fighters were martyred during a terrorist attack by a suicide plane originating from areas controlled by Syrian regime mercenaries, targeting a training academy in the al-Omar field east of Deir ez-Zor,” the SDF said in a statement. 

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, attributed the attack to the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a network of shadow Iraqi militia groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that has claimed responsibility for over 165 rocket and drone attacks on US interests in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan. 

The SDF later on Monday blamed Iran-backed militias for the "terrorist" attack, saying they used regime-controlled areas in Deir ez-Zor as a "staging ground" for the strike.

"Initial investigations have confirmed that the Iranian-backed militias were behind the one-way UAV terrorist attack against our forces in the Al-Omar oil field in Deir Ezzor," Farhad Shami, media head of the SDF, said on X.

The militia groups have carried out the attacks in response to Washington’s support for Israel in its war against the Gaza Strip. 

The Kurdish-led and US-backed SDF, who control northeast Syria (Rojava), fought the lion’s share of the battle against ISIS and arrested thousands of the terror group’s fighters along with their wives and children when they crushed ISIS territorially and took the group’s last stronghold in Syria in 2019.  

Around 2,500 American troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria are leading an international coalition through Operation Inherent Resolve that has assisted Kurdish, Iraqi, and local Syrian forces in the fight against ISIS.