{"id":106741,"date":"2024-08-11T18:00:38","date_gmt":"2024-08-11T18:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/drone-attack-on-us-base-in-syria-minor-injuries-reported\/"},"modified":"2024-08-11T18:00:38","modified_gmt":"2024-08-11T18:00:38","slug":"drone-attack-on-us-base-in-syria-minor-injuries-reported","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/drone-attack-on-us-base-in-syria-minor-injuries-reported\/","title":{"rendered":"Drone attack on US base in Syria, minor injuries reported"},"content":{"rendered":"
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omersukrugoksu\/Getty Images\/STOCK<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

(NEW YORK) — A United States military base in eastern Syria was attacked by a one-way drone, according to a U.S. defense official.<\/p>\n

“On Aug. 9 at about 5 p.m. ET, there was an attack using a one-way attack uncrewed aerial system (OWAUAS) against U.S. and Coalition forces at Rumalyn Landing Zone in Syria,” defense officials said.<\/p>\n

Several people suffered “minor injuries,” officials said Sunday, including smoke inhalation, while others were examined for traumatic brain injuries. None of the injuries were considered life-threatening, officials said.<\/p>\n

Initial reports had not indicated there were any injuries in the attack, and an official had said medical evaluations and a damage assessment following the attack were ongoing.<\/p>\n

The attack is the latest indication that Iranian-backed militia groups in Iraq and Syria may have resumed attack on bases in both countries following a monthslong pause.<\/p>\n

Social media posts have indicated that a fire may have resulted from the attack.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, five Americans were injured when two rockets struck the sprawling Al-Asad Air Base in western Iraq. The Pentagon has blamed that attack on Iranian-backed militia groups but has not determined specifically which group is responsible.<\/p>\n

There are currently about 900 American military personnel still operating in Syria where they support local Kurdish forces in preventing a resurgence of the Islamic State. There are about 2,500 U.S. military personnel in Iraq also participating in a counter-ISIS mission.<\/p>\n

Since Oct. 18, there have been close to 170 attacks taking place on a nearly daily basis as Iranian-backed militia groups target U.S bases in Iraq and Syria, supposedly in retaliation for the Israel-Hamas war.<\/p>\n

Those attacks largely stopped after Feb. 4 following large-scale U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and Syria and a drone strike that killed a top-level leader of the Kataib Hezbollah militia group that the U.S. held responsible for the attacks.<\/p>\n

However, there have now been a small number of attacks on U.S. bases since mid-July that had not resulted in any damage or casualties until this week’s injuries in the attack on the base at Al-Asad.<\/p>\n

U.S. officials have indicated that Iran may enable its proxy groups in the region to resume attacks on U.S. bases as part of a plan to retaliate for the assassination of a top Hamas leader in Tehran last week that Iran blames on Israel.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters that the U.S. was putting in place force protection measures “to protect our troops and also make sure that we’re in a good position to aid in the defense of Israel if called upon to do that. So you’ve seen us do a number of things to strengthen our force posture.”<\/p>\n

“So we’ll see how this evolves, but I won’t speculate on any specific action by Iran or any other Iranian-backed group going forward,” he added.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

omersukrugoksu\/Getty Images\/STOCK (NEW YORK) — A United States military base in eastern Syria was attacked by a one-way drone, according to a U.S. defense official. “On Aug. 9 at about 5 p.m. ET, there was an attack using a one-way attack uncrewed aerial system (OWAUAS) against U.S. and Coalition forcesRead More →<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[156,31,2],"tags":[273,271,276,274,270,123,275,133,124,272,102,103],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106741"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106741\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}