US forces destroyed truck-mounted rocket launchers, tanks and mortars that posed a “clear and immediate threat” in eastern Syria on Tuesday, the Pentagon said.

The weapons systems posed a “clear and immediate threat to US and coalition forces,” US Defense Department spokesman Lt. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters, referring to the international coalition formed to counter the Islamic State (IS) in area.

“We are still in the process of assessing who used these weapons, but be aware that in the region there are organizations close to Iran that have attacked” US military personnel in the past, Mr. Ryder, speaking of blows in “legitimate defense.”

The US has deployed about 2,500 troops to Iraq and another 900 to Syria as part of an international coalition formed in 2014 to counter IS, which had seized vast swaths of Syrian and Iraqi territory before being defeated in 2019.

However, cores of jihadists remain active, especially in remote and rural areas, beyond the major urban centers.

Moreover, since the outbreak of the war in the Gaza Strip, paramilitary groups close to Iran have resumed their attacks against US forces or interests in Iraq and Syria, which Washington, Israel’s main international ally, has retaliated with many cases.

On November 27, an alliance of jihadists and rebels dominated by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), al-Qaeda’s former Syrian arm, launched a lightning offensive in northwestern Syria and captured dozens of communities, including most of Aleppo, the second-largest Syrian urban center, before continuing to advance towards south.

Lt Gen Ryder assured yesterday that the US airstrike had “nothing to do with the wider operations” of other military forces or armed organizations “in north-west Syria”.