WASHINGTON: US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has claimed that US warplanes carried out a strike on targets in eastern Syria on Wednesday in retaliation to attacks against American troops in the region.
This is the second time that the United States has conducted an attack against a target in Syria in roughly two weeks. Washington blamed some groups for a spike in attacks on its forces in the Middle East. The United States claimed to counter designs to turn the Israel-Hamas fighting into a regional conflict.
Austin in a statement said that the US military forces carried out a “self-defense strike” on a facility in eastern Syria. He said two US F-15s conducted strike against a weapons storage facility.
US Conducts Strike in Syria: Pentagon Chief
He said that the precision self-defense strike is a response to a series of attacks against US personnel in Iraq and Syria by some forces. He added that the United States is fully prepared to take further necessary measures to protect its people and facilities.
The surge in assault on US troops is connected to the war between Israel and Hamas, which started a on October 7. According to the Hamas-run health ministry in the Gaza Strip, Israel’s bombardment has killed over 10,500 people, most of them women and children.
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At least 2,500 others, more than half of them minors, have been reported missing and are most likely trapped under the rubble. There are about 2,500 American troops in Iraq and some 900 in Syria as part of efforts to prevent a reemergence of Daesh.
Daesh once held significant territory in both countries but was defeated by local ground forces backed by international air strikes in a bloody multi-year conflict.
