Iran-backed attacks on US forces in Syria and Iraq continue

Iranian-backed proxies continued to attack US forces in Iraq and Syria this week, including overnight between Wednesday and Thursday, according to media reports.

Iran’s Tasnim News Agency boasted of one such attack on Thursday. It said there had been “explosions” at the US outpost near Conico in eastern Syria. This area is near the Euphrates River and east of the city of Deir ez-Zor. Iran has many militias that operate on the western side of the river near Deir ez-Zor. The US operates on the eastern side with the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which fight ISIS.

Iranian media outlets said there were reports of a “ missile attack on this base.” They also cited Al Mayadeen, a pro-Iranian news channel based in Beirut, which reported: “On the other hand, some news sources reported a drone attack on the American forces in al-Shaddadi base in Syria.”

Having so many media outlets that are pro-Iranian regime report on these attacks sends a clear message. It shows how Iran wants to increase these operations.

Tehran has been frustrated in attempts to back Hamas in Gaza and achieve a ceasefire there to help Hamas stave off the continued Israeli operations. In fact, it’s clear now that Iran and its proxies are concerned.

Iran’s wider objectives in the region

IDF operations will continue into January, Al Mayadeen reported. Tehran needs to keep Hamas intact to some extent in Gaza while maintaining Hamas’s influence in the West Bank.

Toward that end, Iran seeks to inflame Syria and Iraq and to use the war in Gaza to increase attacks on the US. Tehran wants the US to leave Syria and Iraq so that Iran can dominate Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen and then threaten Israel directly.

There have been recent attacks on Al-Asad Airbase in Iraq, where US forces are. In addition, the Syrian Democratic Forces located rocket launchers after an attack near Shaddadi, Kurdistan 24 reported. Omar Abu Layla, an expert on Syria, also wrote on X about the attacks on Conico.

There have been almost 80 attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel. 

Seth Frantzman is the author of Drone Wars: Pioneers, Killing Machine, Artificial Intelligence and the Battle for the Future (Bombardier 2021) and an adjunct fellow at The Foundation for Defense of Democracies.