US quietly acknowledges attacks against troops in Syria

The U.S. military’s latest airstrikes against Iranian-backed groups in Syria underscores how difficult it has become to get basic information about American forces deployed to the Middle East.

U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM, announced on Monday that the airstrikes were “in response to several attacks on U.S. personnel in Syria over the last 24 hours.”

This was the first time that U.S. military officials had acknowledged that American service members in Syria had been attacked recently.

On Monday, a defense official told Task & Purpose that no U.S. service members had been wounded in the attacks and all American troops in the region have been accounted for, but the official declined to specify when and where the attacks in Syria had taken place.

The U.S. airstrikes struck nine targets in two locations that were “associated with Iranian groups,” CENTCOM said in a statement. No further information was immediately available about where the strikes were carried out or which Iranian groups were targeted.