SOHR: Strike on US base was Iranian response to Israeli attack, officials say
The US base sits on a road serving as a lifeline for Iranian-backed forces along a strategic corridor stretching from Tehran through Iraq and Syria to southern Lebanon and the Israeli border.
Senior US and Israeli officials said they had intelligence that the drone attack was in retaliation for several recent Israeli strikes against Iranian forces in Syria.
On October 8, Israel fired missiles at an air base in central Syria which, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, serves as Iran’s military headquarters.
On October 13, Israeli airstrikes hit Iranian military targets near the cities of Palmyra and Homs in central Syria, killing three pro-Iran militias and a Syrian soldier. Iranian officials have vowed to retaliate.
On October 16, an Israeli sniper assassinated Midhat Saleh, a senior Syrian official who, according to Israeli intelligence, was working with Iran to establish military infrastructure along the border for an attack on Israel.
Iranian forces first traveled to Syria to defend President Bashar al-Assad against a rebellion that began in 2011, and used the ensuing civil war as an opportunity to build militias and infrastructure military directed against Israel. Israel has carried out hundreds of attacks on Iranian targets in Syria since 2013.
trafficking operations.
SOURCE: FR24 News