American service members stationed in the Middle East have endured at least 27 attacks by Iran-backed terror groups since Oct. 17, the Pentagon confirmed Tuesday.
Since US fighter jets launched two retaliatory airstrikes against locations in eastern Syria on Oct. 26, there have been at least six additional “small-scale attacks” in the region.
“In some cases, they just didn’t strike anything,” Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder claimed to reporters during a briefing.
“To my knowledge [there were] no injuries, no damaged infrastructure,” the spokesman added of the most recent attacks.
In total, there have been 16 attacks in Iraq and 11 in Syria, since Oct. 17, per Ryder.
The attacks against American forces have taken the form of rocket and drone strikes. The Pentagon has confirmed that around two dozen service members suffered minor injuries and that at least one contractor died after a cardiac event while seeking shelter from an attack.
With the exception of the two airstrikes last week, the Biden administration has responded with a series of verbal warnings toward Tehran.
When Vice President Kamala Harris was asked in a CBS “60 Minutes” interview, “What’s the message to Iran?”, she told correspondent Bill Whitaker: “Don’t.”
“As President Biden said, just, ‘Don’t’?” Whitaker followed up in the interview that aired Sunday night.
“Exactly,” Harris answered. “One word. Pretty straightforward.”
On Tuesday, Ryder promised that the military would “do what we need to do to protect our troops.”
Yet the sporadic attacks against US forces have persisted from Iranian-backed groups such as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq and the Houthi rebels of Yemen.
Targeted outposts include al-Tanf garrison in southern Syria, the Ain al-Asad air base west of Baghdad, and the al-Harir air base near Erbil in northern Iraq.
At the moment, the US has roughly 900 troops in Syria and 2,500 in Iraq. An additional 300 forces will soon be dispatched to the Middle East, Ryder announced Tuesday.
“These additional troops will provide capabilities and explosive ordnance disposal, communications and other support enablers for forces already in the region,” he said, confirming that they were not going to Israel.
“They are intended to support regional deterrence efforts and further bolster US force protection capabilities.”
The spate of attacks on US assets in the region has taken place in the wake of Hamas’ deadly surprise Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel that led the Jewish state to declare war for the first time in 50 years.
The Biden administration has dispatched the USS Gerald R. Ford and USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carriers along with their elite strike groups to the eastern Mediterranean as the war unfolds.
The Hamas attack killed more than 1,400 people, including at least 33 Americans. The jihadists are also believed to be holding more than 200 hostages, including a small number of Americans.