No casualties as US forces in Syria come under attack

US forces in eastern Syria took indirect fire on Saturday, but reports said there were no casualties or damage, a US defence official told Reuters.

Hours later, an attack on coalition forces stationed at Al Omar oilfield began, a UK-based monitoring group said.

The incidents were the latest in a series of attacks on US personnel in Iraq and Syria.

The defence official said the attack occurred in Conoco, near Deir Ezzor, where there are oil and gas fields.

The US supports Kurdish groups, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, to operate and protect these fields and to tackle the remains of ISIS in eastern Syria.

There are about 900 US troops in Syria.

Last week, unidentified forces also launched attacks on Al Omar oilfield, the SDF reported.

US diplomats and troops in Iraq and Syria were the targets of three rocket and drone attacks on Wednesday alone.

At least 14 rockets hit an Iraqi airbase where US personnel are stationed, wounding two of them.

On Thursday, the heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses the US embassy in Baghdad, was attacked.

While there were no claims of responsibility, analysts believed they were the work of Iran-backed militias.

Iraqi militia groups aligned with Iran promised to retaliate after US strikes on the Iraqi-Syrian border killed four of their members last month.

Abu Alaa Al Walae, commander of the Kataib Sayyid Al Shuhada group, told the Associated Press that he would carry out operations to take “revenge on the Americans”.

Iran has denied supporting attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria and condemned US air strikes on Iran-backed groups.

The US, which has 2,500 troops in Iraq as part of an international anti-ISIS coalition, have come under attack about 50 times this year.

Washington has been holding indirect talks with Iran aimed at bringing both nations back into compliance with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which was abandoned by the Trump administration in 2018.

No date has been set for the next round of the talks, which adjourned on June 20.