What do we know so far?
The attempted drone attack followed US strikes on two military facilities in eastern Syria, used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and affiliated groups, which the US claims are behind a spike in attacks targeting American forces in the region.
“US forces engaged a one-way attack drone a few kilometers from Al-Assad Air Base, Iraq, and successfully shot it down without further incident,” a US defense official anonymously told the news agency AFP.
Pro-Iranian militias have claimed more than a dozen attacks on US-manned bases in Iraq and adjacent Syria since the Israel-Hamas war flared up earlier this month.
A group calling itself the Islamic Resistance in Iraq — which has claimed many of the recent attacks on US and allied forces in Iraq and Syria — said it carried out the attack.
The US official also said there was a “multi-rocket attack” in Syria on Thursday against American and other forces from the international coalition against the “so called” Islamic State (IS) jihadi group.
“There were no casualties or damage to infrastructure,” the official said of that attack.
