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Biden Airstrikes Prompt Attack on U.S. Troops in Syria
29 Jun 2021
Multiple rockets targeted a U.S. base near an oil field in Syria on Monday evening, a day after U.S. airstrikes hit facilities used by Iran-backed Shiite militia groups in the Iraq-Syria border region.
The U.S. military said there were “no injuries and damage is being assessed.”
Col. Wayne Marotto, a spokesman for the U.S.-led mission against the Islamic State known as Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR), said the attack against U.S. forces in Syria began at roughly 7:44 PM local time.
Marotto said U.S. forces “acted in self-defense and conducted counter-battery artillery fire at rocket-launching positions.”
June 29, 2021
Iran-backed militias launched several rockets near a US-led coalition base in eastern Syria on Monday evening in apparent retaliation for American airstrikes that killed four of their fighters the night prior.
No US or coalition personnel were initially reported hurt in the attack, according to Operation Inherent Resolve spokesperson Col. Wayne Marotto. US troops responded to the barrage with their own artillery fire aimed at knocking out the launch sites, Marotto said.
Local networks Ayn al-Furat and Deir Ezzor 24 also reported that the United States responded with airstrikes, which neither the coalition nor Pentagon has confirmed.
The blows follow a series of tit-for-tat exchanges between Iran-backed militias and US-led coalition forces in Iraq in recent years, but they mark a rare spread of the conflict into neighboring Syria.
By Humeyra Pamuk
ROME, June 28 (Reuters) – Alarmed by the spread of Islamic State across Africa, Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said on Monday he wanted to set up an international task force to counter the threat.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking after a meeting in Italy aimed at renewing efforts to combat the Islamist militants, said he supported the Italian initiative.
Islamic State affiliates have claimed gains in recent weeks in Nigeria, the Sahel, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo, helping to offset significant setbacks in the Middle East, where the group initially gained prominence.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday pressed US allies to bring back citizens arrested overseas for joining the Islamic State group, warning they could not be held indefinitely in Syria.
Blinken made the appeal in Rome at a meeting of an 83-member coalition on defeating the extremist network, where he and the Italian hosts called for greater attention to the jihadist threat in Africa.
About 10,000 suspected Islamic State fighters are being held in northern Syria by Western-allied Kurdish fighters, according to US estimates.
“This situation is simply untenable. It just can’t persist indefinitely,” Blinken said.
“The United States continues to urge countries including coalition partners to repatriate, rehabilitate and, where applicable, prosecute their citizens,” he said.