US Bases Atop Syria’s Largest Oil and Gas Fields Reportedly Come Under Attack

The Pentagon announced Thursday that it had conducted “self-defense strikes” against two facilities in eastern Syria purportedly used by Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and “affiliated groups.” The escalating violence comes amid a major surge in regional tensions related to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Six missiles have reportedly rained down on an illegal US military base sitting atop the Al-Omar oil field northeast of Deir ez-Zor, Syria early Friday morning.

The attack, reported on by sources speaking to Lebanese media and corroborated by an Iraqi outlet affiliated with Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces militias, came less than a day after the Pentagon reported on its own strikes inside Syria.

Separately on Friday, sources told regional media that they’d heard explosions inside the US base at the Conoco Gas Field – Syria’s biggest gas facility – also situated in Deir ez-Zor province.

The reported attacks on US-occupied energy facilities in Syria follow Thursday's news that US troops around Erbil Airport in northern Iraq had been targeted using two drones. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed responsibility for the Erbil attack. The same group previously claimed responsibility for a wave of other recent drone and rocket strikes against US forces across Iraq and Syria, in connection with US support for Tel Aviv amid the Palestinian-Israeli crisis.

Department of Defense spokesman Pat Ryder confirmed on Thursday that an attack against US forces in Erbil had been attempted, citing “some minor damage to infrastructure” but “no casualties.” Ryder said the Pentagon holds “Iran responsible” for militias operating across Iraq and Syria.

The Pentagon further indicated on Thursday that US forces and their allies in Iraq and Syria had been targeted at least 16 times so far this month – including 13 times between October 17 and 24 alone – ten of them in Iraq and three in Syria, “via a mix” of drones and rockets. Some 19 US service members reportedly suffered “traumatic brain injuries” during the spate of attacks. Fifteen of the injuries were said to have occurred at the Al Tanf Garrison, an illegal US-held outpost jutting into Syria near the Iraqi-Jordanian border which Syria and its allies have said repeatedly has been used by the Pentagon to train terrorist militants seeking to overthrow the Syrian government.

US officials have yet to comment on the reported attacks against Al-Omar or Conoco. A gas pipeline near Conoco was reportedly targeted by militias last week.

However, US Central Command has confirmed that other attacks so far have targeted Mission Support Site Euphrates and Mission Support Site Green Village in Syria, and in Bashur and the Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center in Iraq.

The US has roughly a dozen bases dotting northeastern Syria manned by at least 900 troops, and forces inside Iraq said to be acting in an ‘advisory’ capacity following the official end of the combat mission in that country in 2021. The US military established a presence in the region under the pretext of fighting Daesh (ISIS),* but never left after the terrorist ‘caliphate’ was crushed by an unlikely coalition which included Syria, Iraq, Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, the US and Syrian Kurdish militias allied to Washington.

Syria has slammed the US at the United Nations and other venues over the plunder of its energy and food resources by American forces and its militia allies. Damascus estimates that up to 90 percent of its modest oil and gas resources are under occupation, with the energy sector overall suffering well over $100 billion in damage from looting, wastage, vandalism and US coalition attacks.

The Pentagon revealed late on Thursday that US forces had struck two facilities in Syria, with attacks supposedly carried out “in self-defense” in “response to a series of ongoing and mostly unsuccessful attacks against US forces in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-backed militia groups that began on October 17.”

President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he had sent a “warning” to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to “be prepared” for a US retaliation “if they continue to move against those troops.”

Neither Biden nor the Pentagon provided any proof to corroborate Iranian involvement in the Syria and Iraq rocket and drone strikes. It’s known that both countries are home to self-defense militias – formed in the 2010s to combat a range of jihadist extremists, including Daesh and al-Qaeda-linked fighters. Iran has assisted the Syrian government in its anti-terrorist struggle, with IRGC Quds Force officers helping to train and advise Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces. The United States assassinated Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani in an unprovoked attack in Baghdad in January 2020 while the latter was on a peace mission negotiating a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The spate of back and forth violence comes in the wake of the escalating Palestinian-Israeli crisis stemming from Hamas’ surprise attacks into southern Israeli on October 7, and the resulting massive Israeli campaign of air, missile and artillery strikes into Gaza. Tensions have escalated further over repeatedly Israeli strikes into Syria, and attacks on Hezbollah militia positions along the Israeli-Lebanese border. The provocations have yet to provoke a response by Damascus, Hezbollah or Iran, with Tehran instead blasting Israeli actions in Gaza and joining other countries including Russia, China and Turkiye demanding an immediate ceasefire. Iranian Foreign Minister Amir-Abdollahian warned on Thursday that US officials seeking to prevent the Palestinian-Israeli crisis from escalating while supporting Tel Aviv’s “genocide” in Gaza that Washington would “not be spared from the fire” if such an escalation occurred.

* Terrorist groups outlawed in Russia and many other countries.