US Military Launches Airstrikes Against Facilities Of Iran's Elite Forces Linked Group In Syria

Illustration of the United States MQ-9 Reaper drone. (Wikimedia Commons/USGOV-PD)

JAKARTA - The United States military announced it had carried out air strikes against the facilities of a group affiliated with the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) forces in Deir al-Zor on Tuesday.

The attacks come amid efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world nuclear powers, including the United States after indirect talks over the past 16 months.

The US military's Central Command (Centcom) said in a statement the strikes were aimed at protecting US troops from attacks by Iran-backed groups.

It referred to an attack incident like the one on August 15, where drones attacked a compound run by the US-backed Syrian opposition coalition and rebels, but no casualties were caused.

"The president gave directions for this attack", Army spokesman Colonel Joe Buccino said, reported to Reuters on August 24.

Central Command called the attack a "proportional and deliberate action, intended to limit the risk of escalation and minimize the risk of casualties."

The statement on Tuesday's US strike did not say whether there were casualties, did not say whether the airstrikes were carried out by manned or unmanned aircraft.

This is not the first time US warplanes have attacked Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria. The United States attacked operationally and weapons storage facilities at two locations in Syria and one in Iraq in June last year.

The US troops were first deployed to Syria during the Obama Administration's campaign against ISIS, in partnership with a Kurdish-led group called the Syrian Democratic Forces. There are about 900 US troops in Syria, most of them in the east.

Meanwhile, Iran-backed militias are establishing a foothold in Syria while fighting to support President Bashar al-Assad during the Syrian civil war.

They are concentrated west of the Euphrates in Deir al-Zor province, where they get supplies from Iraq via the al-Bukamal border crossing.