November 19, 2021
Iranian-backed troops in Syria have sent five armed drones to attack American troops at Tanf in Syria, an attack that did some damage but did not kill or injure any Americas, the Pentagon has announced.
Fox News reported that the US military got advance warning that an attack was about to be launched October 20 and evacuated most (but not all) of the 200 American troops assigned to the remote base, the largest bloc of US troops in Syria. Fox did not say who warned the US. Two years ago, the United States was watching Iranian missile sites and saw they were being prepared for launches and so removed most of the troops at Al-Asad Air Base in western Iraq, similarly avoiding any deaths when the missiles landed there.
President Trump had said he would retaliate if Iran killed any US troops. President Biden has not said the same, but analysts generally believe he would have to retaliate or face considerable criticism if any American is killed by an Iranian hand.
The Pentagon played down the attack, seemingly trying to avoid making a public issue of what happened.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby was careful to say the drones were not launched from Iran, but by militia troops in Syria that are funded, supplied and commanded by Iran’s Qods Force.
But news outlets affiliated with Iran haven’t tried to downplay or hide the attack. Instead, they have touted the attack in commentaries as a major success and hinted that more strikes against US troops in Syria will follow.
They attributed the attack to a little-known group called Allies of Syria, which earlier last month issued a statement threatening “harsh” retaliation for an Israeli airstrike against an Iranian base outside the Syrian city of Palmyra October 14. The Israeli strike, the statement said, was launched from the direction of Tanf.
That seemed an effort to justify an attack on Tanf. For Israel to fly to Palmyra via Tanf would more than double the flying distance. Israel has never had any problem flying directly to attack targets in Syria.
The attack on the US outpost demonstrated “a great deal of boldness and strength” on the part of the Allies of Syria that will change the balance of power in Syria, said Iran’s Fars news agency, which is affiliated with the Pasdaran.
The Al-Ahed website, affiliated with Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, said the attack heralded the start of “a new phase in the confrontation” in which Iran and its allies would seek to liberate Syria from US troops. It said the American withdrawal from Afghanistan “happened only under the pressure of military operations and not political or diplomatic pressure.” Actually, it came about because President Biden overrode the advice of the Pentagon.
The 3,500 US troops in neighboring Iraq have come under frequent rocket attacks over the past four years, and at least three similar attacks involving drones have been reported in the past year. The United States has retaliated with airstrikes against Iranian-allied militias in both Syria and Iraq, most recently in February, and it might respond to this one, too, Kirby said.
Until recently, the estimated 900 US troops scattered thinly across a vast swath of northeastern Syria and at their lone outpost farther south at Tanf had been largely ignored by Iranian troops and their militia allies backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
That began to change over the summer with a series of largely unreported rocket attacks against US bases in the Kurdish-controlled northeast, said Michael Knights, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He attributed the shift to a decision by Iran to order its allies to refrain from attacking US troops in Iraq to ensure stability in the run-up to parliamentary elections that were held last month.
The escalation at the Tanf garrison is likely tied to the dimming prospects for a resumption of negotiations to renew the Iran nuclear accord, according to Ali Alfoneh, an Iran expert at the Arab Gulf States Institute.