ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - At least thirteen pro-Iran militiamen were killed in unidentified airstrikes on Tuesday in Syria’s eastern Deir ez-Zor province, a war monitor reported. A local media outlet attributed the strike to the US.
“Nine pro-Iran militiamen were killed and more than 20 wounded as a result of airstrikes that targeted sites and headquarters of Iran-affiliated militias in Deir ez-Zor after midnight,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a Britain-based war monitor, adding that an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander was among the dead.
SOHR later updated the death toll, saying four militants were killed in a separate airstrike on the town of al-Bukamal in Deir ez-Zor countryside. The strikes injured 36 people, including ten civilians.
Local news outlet DeirEzzor24 said the strikes targeted military and security headquarters of the IRGC in the province, seriously injuring an IRGC commander known as Hajj Askar.
The strikes come amid simmering tensions in Syria and Iraq against the backdrop of the Israel-Gaza war, with Washington having previously engaged in tit-for-tat strikes with pro-Iran militias in the region.
US troops in Iraq and Syria have come under a series of rocket and drone attacks by pro-Iran militias since October 7, in retaliation for Washington’s support for Israel in its war against the Gaza Strip.
In early February, Washington launched a large-scale retaliation campaign against IRGC-Quds Force and affiliated militia groups in Syria.
The strikes were ordered in retaliation for the deaths of three US soldiers in a drone strike carried out by pro-Iran militias on a US military base in Jordan a week prior.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a network of shadow Iraqi militia groups affiliated with the IRGC, has claimed responsibility for over 165 rocket and drone attacks on US interests in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan.
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 the Islamic State (ISIS).
Updated at 1:20 pm with new death toll
