BEIRUT, Feb 5, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Five fighters from the Kurdish-led Syrian

Democratic Forces were killed in an overnight attack on an American base in
eastern Syria, a war monitor said Monday.

"Five members from SDF special forces were killed and around 20 wounded by a
drone attack after midnight on Al-Omar oil field," the largest US-led
coalition base in Syria, said Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-
based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a loose alliance of pro-Iran fighters opposed
to US support for Israel in Gaza, claimed a drone attack on Sunday "against
the US occupation base in the Al-Omar oil field".

The Observatory's Abdel Rahman said the attack hit an SDF section inside the
base, in "the first attack by pro-Iran groups against American bases after
the US strikes on Syria and Iraq" late last week.

On January 28, a drone slammed into a base in Jordan, killing three US
soldiers and wounding more than 40, an attack Washington blamed on Iran-
backed forces.

The US responded Friday with a series of unilateral strikes on Iran-linked
targets in Syria and Iraq, and has said it would press on with its
retaliation.

The Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria, had said
at least 29 pro-Iran fighters were killed in the US strikes in Syria.

A US-led coalition was set up in 2014 to fight Islamic State group jihadists
who had seized swathes of Iraq and neighbouring Syria.

Roughly 2,500 US troops are deployed in Iraq and about 900 in Syria as part
of the coalition.