Pentagon confirms first attack against troops in Iraq and Syria since February

The Department of Defense confirmed that U.S. troops were the target of attacks by militias in Iraq and Syria recently.

Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder affirmed on Tuesday that the two attacks on April 22 were unsuccessful, injured no one, and that it was the first time these Iranian-supported militias carried out an attack like this since early February.

These militias have targeted U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria roughly 170 times between mid-October, following Hamas's Oct. 7 attack in Israel and Israel's subsequent response, and early February. In late January, the militias killed three U.S. troops at Tower 22, a small U.S. base in northeast Jordan. The United States's multipronged response had temporarily restored deterrence, or convinced those militias that the U.S. would respond forcefully to continued attacks.

A day earlier, Ryder stated that “a coalition fighter destroyed a launcher in self-defense after reports of a failed rocket attack near the coalition base at Rumalyn in Syria” and added that a coalition aircraft took out “a truck with rockets on it that was shooting rockets all over the place.”

During Monday's briefing, he explained that U.S. Central Command had not yet determined whether U.S. forces were the target of the attack. Ryder did not specify which terrorist group the department believed was responsible for the attack, though Iran funds many militias in the region.

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State Department spokesman Matthew Miller condemned the attack on Monday.

"We certainly condemn the attack by an Iran-aligned militia group against U.S. forces in Syria," he said. "We’ve seen these attacks, obviously, in the past. We have made quite clear to Iran, we’ve made quite clear to Iran’s proxy groups that we will defend our interests, we will defend our personnel, and that continues to be the case."