WASHINGTON — US troops stationed at a remote base on Syria’s border with Iraq shot down a one-way attack drone on Monday afternoon, a US defense official confirmed to Al-Monitor, marking what appeared to be the first attempted attack by suspected Iran-backed militias in nearly two months.
The official did not specify the target of the drone, but US troops at bases across Iraq and Syria have faced regular attacks with exploding drones, missiles and rockets fired by militias armed by the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in recent years.
Why it matters: Suspected Iran-backed militias have launched more than a hundred such attempted attacks on US troops positions in Iraq and Syria since Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip began last October.
But the attacks halted in early February after US President Joe Biden authorized a retaliatory drone strike in Baghdad, killing Abu Baqr al-Saadi, top leader of Kataib Hezbollah’s operations in Syria.