(CNSNews.com) – President Biden is “absolutely” committed to keeping the 900 U.S. troops in Syria, and the U.S. “will always act decisively to protect our people,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Sunday.
He spoke to CBS’s “Face the Nation” after confirming that a U.S. service member had been injured in one of three attacks on U.S. positions late last week.
Those attacks came after Biden ordered airstrikes against Iranian-linked groups in eastern Syria, in response to Thursday’s drone attack on a U.S. base in Syria’s northeast that killed an American contractor and wounded five U.S. service members and another contractor.
Kirby twice referred to Biden having acted “swiftly and boldly” in response to Thursday’s drone attack. When host Margaret Brennan suggested the Iranian-backed groups “don’t appear to be deterred,” he said he would not “rule out the potential for additional U.S. action if the president deems it appropriate and necessary to continue to protect our troops and our facilities.”
“These Iran-backed militant groups, they’re going to have decisions that they’re going to have to make,” Kirby added. “They need to know – and we demonstrated it here this week – that the United States will always act decisively to protect our people.”
The three most recent attacks referred to in the interview included one in which ten rockets were fired at U.S. and allies forces in northeastern Syria, according to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM).
“One of the rockets missed the facility by almost five kilometers, striking a civilian house, causing significant damage and causing minor injuries to two women and two children,” it said.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the Iranian proxies also fired rockets at a Conoco energy plant and the Al Omar oil field – Syria’s largest – both in Deir ez-Zor province. The Associated Press reported it was in the Conoco attack that a U.S. service member was injured.
The roughly 900 troops in Syria are partnering with Kurdish-led local forces in a campaign to ensure that ISIS does not re-emerge as a serious threat. The U.S. also has around 2,500 troops deployed in Iraq at the invitation of the Iraqi government, advising and training local forces to deter a resurgence of ISIS.
In congressional testimony last Thursday, CENTCOM commander U.S. Army Gen. Michael Kurilla disclosed that, since the beginning of 2021, U.S. troops in Syria and Iraq have been attacked by Iranian proxies, using drones or rockets, “about 78 times.”
Asked whether those attacks were considered acts of war by Iran, Kurilla replied, “They are being done by the Iranian proxies, is what I will tell you.”
Before the recent escalation, in response to the scores of attacks, Biden ordered retaliatory strikes against militias affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a total of three times:
--On August 23, 2022, in response to an attack involving multiple drones eight days earlier targeting U.S. and allied troops at a base close to where the borders of Syria, Iraq, and Jordan meet. No casualties were reported in the drone attack.
--On June 27, 2021, in response to drone attacks against U.S. personnel and facilities in Iraq.
--On February 25, 2021, in retaliation for a rocket attack on a base in Erbil, Iraq, which killed a Filipino contractor and injured an American service member, among others.
On Friday, House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) drew attention to those the two figures – the number of attacks against U.S. troops, and the number of U.S. retaliatory strikes.
“Prior to this attack [on Thursday], Iranian proxies had attacked U.S. forces 78 times since the beginning of 2021, yet this administration only responded kinetically three times,” he said in a statement.
“Our deterrence against Iran is broken, even as Iran is only months from having a nuclear weapon,” McCaul said. “We need to restore our deterrence against Iran or face further devastating consequences.”
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Thursday’s U.S. airstrike in response to the drone attack killed at least 19 fighters – 16 Iranian-backed militiamen and three soldiers of the Iran-supported Assad regime.
A spokesman for Iran’s Supreme National Security Council warned on Saturday that Iran will hit back at U.S. attacks on what he described as bases established in Syria at the request of the Assad regime “for the purposes of fighting terrorism.”
The Tasnim news agency quoted Keivan Khosravi as saying the U.S. was pointing a finger of blame at Iran while evading the consequences of its own “illegal occupation” of Syrian territory.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani accused the U.S. of striking civilians in its airstrikes, and said the continued “illegal military presence of the U.S.” on Syrian soil violated international law as well as Syrian national sovereignty. (The U.S. government does not recognize the legitimacy of the Assad regime.)
“The Islamic Republic of Iran’s military advisors are currently present in Syria at the request of the Syrian government to help this country fight terrorism,” Kanani said.