Air strikes in eastern Syria have killed 26 Iraqis from an Iran-backed Shia paramilitary force after a deadly attack on US-led coalition forces in Iraq, a monitoring group has said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Popular Mobilisation bases near the border town of Albu Kamal were hit.
It was not clear who carried out the strikes. The coalition did not comment.
But it followed a rocket attack on Camp Taji military base in Iraq that killed one British and two American soldiers.
No group has said it fired the rockets, but a top US commander said they were likely to have been fired by Shia militias in the Popular Mobilisation.
“While we are still investigating the attack, I will note that the Iranian proxy group Kataib Hezbollah is the only group known to have previously conducted an indirect fire attack of this scale against US and coalition forces in Iraq,” Central Command chief Gen Kenneth McKenzie told a Senate committee.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson described the attack as “deplorable”, while US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said it would not be tolerated, and that those responsible must be held accountable.
The US has accused Iran-backed militias of 13 similar attacks on Iraqi bases hosting coalition forces in the past year.
The killing of an American civilian in one such incident in December triggered a round of violence which ultimately led US President Donald Trump to order the assassination of the top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani and Kataib Hezbollah commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis the following month.
Syrian state news agency Sana said unidentified aircraft “launched an aggression” on Wednesday night on the south-eastern outskirts of Albu Kamal, close to the Syria-Iraq border. The attacks caused only material damage, it added.
Source:Fiilafmonline/BBC
