Coalition forces at Al-Tanf Garrison on the Iraq-Syria border faced a rocket attack Monday night and shot down a one-way aerial drone earlier that same day, according to Operation Inherent Resolve, which did not name the attackers.
One drone was shot down at 6:30 a.m. on Monday, preventing its impact, OIR said in a statement. Another drone, OIR added, detonated within a compound used by Maghaweir al-Thowra, a U.S.-backed Syrian opposition group.
Then on Monday evening, at about 9 p.m., multiple rounds of indirect fire landed in the vicinity of Green Village in northeastern Syria, OIR said in a separate statement on Tuesday.
“Thankfully on this occasion, there were no casualties and no damage reported,” the OIR statement reads.
Several rockets failed to launch and were recovered by coalition troops and their Syrian Democratic Forces partners, according to OIR.
“Such attacks put the lives of innocent Syrian civilians at risk and undermine the significant efforts by our Partner Forces to maintain the lasting defeat of ISIS,” said Maj. Gen. John Brennan, the Combined Joint Task Force-OIR commander, in a statement. “Coalition personnel retain the right to self-defense, and we will take appropriate measures to protect our forces.”
OIR did not identify the attackers in the statement, nor did they respond for a request by Military Times to do so.
There have been various attacks over the past few years on U.S.-backed forces and coalition troops based in Syria.
One of the more eyebrow raising incidents occurred in early April.
An explosion at Green Village was initially believed by OIR to be the result of indirect-fire. But an investigation later determined it was an insider attack perpetrated by a U.S. service member, who is facing court martial.
The U.S. military has maintained a large presence in the region since 2016.
At the onset of the American intervention in the Syrian Civil War, the U.S. sought to train anti-ISIS fighters among the more moderate opposition forces.
Since ISIS’ territorial defeat, the U.S. has shifted to arguing that its presence in Syria prevents the reemergence of ISIS.
Zamone “Z” Perez is a reporter at Military Times. He previously worked at Foreign Policy and Ufahamu Africa. He is a graduate of Northwestern University, where he researched international ethics and atrocity prevention in his thesis. He can be found on Twitter @zamoneperez.
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