Three American forces injured in rocket attack on US-occupied bases in Syria
Rocket strikes have hit US-occupied military bases in eastern Syria, injuring at least three American service members, reports say.
The official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) said several rockets targeted bases that are run by US occupation force at the al-Omar and Koniko oilfields in the countryside of the city of Dayr al-Zawr.
"One US military service member suffered a minor injury and two others are being evaluated for minor injuries following [the] rocket attacks," Reuters reported, citing the US military.
A plume of smoke was seen rising out of the area, SANA added. The occupying American forces have "closed the area," the civilian sources noted, saying American aircraft had started staging extensive flights over the area.
The rocket attacks came after American warplanes carried out a fresh airstrike in Dayr al-Zawr in the wee hours of the day.
The US military's Central Command, which oversees the American forces in the West Asia region, said in a statement that the aerial assault had been aimed at "protecting US forces from attacks." It said the strike had targeted military infrastructure facilities run by Syrian government forces and their allies.
Reporting earlier in the day, The Washington Post cited the US military as claiming that it had "targeted infrastructure used by groups with ties to Iran’s" Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan'ani dismissed the claim, describing the strike as a "terrorist" act against the people of Syria and the popular anti-terror groups in the country, and denying any link between the groups and the Islamic Republic.
The US military said the airstrike were in response to an August 15 attack, when armed drones hit the vicinity of the al-Tanf base in southeastern Syria near the borders with Jordan and Iraq, where US-led occupation forces were deployed in large numbers.
The Pentagon claims that the American forces' deployment to the area is aimed at preventing the oilfields from falling into the hands of the Daesh terrorists.
Damascus, however, maintains that the deployment is meant to plunder the country's rich mineral resources.
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