WASHINGTON — An uneasy detente between US troops and Iran-backed militias seemed at risk of collapse on Monday after coalition forces twice carried out defensive strikes against weapons systems used to fire at US bases in Iraq and Syria in less than 24 hours.
Rockets fired from Iraq landed near the US base at Rumalyn in northeast Syria on Sunday night, prompting a fighter aircraft affiliated with the US-led military coalition in Iraq and Syria to destroy a ground-based launcher in self-defense, officials said Monday.
No American personnel were injured in that incident, which defense officials initially described as a “failed rocket attack.”
Yet Pentagon officials on Monday hesitated to attribute any intent behind the barrage, which press secretary US Air Force Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder described as the result of “some type of malfunction, [a] failed rocket attack” in which the launcher vehicle was “shooting rockets all over the place.”
Two US defense officials speaking on the condition of anonymity later confirmed to Al-Monitor that US Central Command had classified the incident as a deliberate attempted attack on the Rumalyn Landing Zone, marking the first incident to be categorized as such by the US........