Pentagon Denies Syrian and Iranian Media Reports of US Airstrike in Eastern Syria

On Tuesday, the United States Department of Defense rejected claims made by Syrian and Iranian state media regarding an airstrike by the US military in eastern Syria early Tuesday morning. Sabrina Singh, the deputy spokesperson for the Department of Defense, told reporters, "We did not conduct airstrikes in Syria last night," refuting the reports from Syrian and Iranian media that accused the US military of attacking eastern Syria. Syrian media claimed that at least seven soldiers, one member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and one civilian were killed following the alleged bombing of areas in eastern Syria. They also reported that residential areas and military sites in Deir ez-Zor province were targeted, resulting in at least 19 soldiers and 13 civilians being injured. Iranian state media announced that an IRGC member named Behrouz Vahidi was killed in the airstrike in Deir ez-Zor. Israel has been conducting attacks on targets linked to the Iranian government in Syria for years, where Tehran's influence has grown since it began supporting Bashar al-Assad during the civil war that started in 2011, but it rarely comments publicly on these operations. Since the Hamas attack on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of 1,200 people in Israel and the abduction of 253 individuals, mostly civilians, Israel has increased its attacks on Iranian-backed targets in Syria, as well as on the Syrian army's air defenses and some Syrian forces. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported last week that a Hezbollah commander and four other militia members were killed in an airstrike in Deir ez-Zor. Previously, Western and regional intelligence sources had stated that Israeli attacks in Syria had resulted in the deaths of many Hezbollah forces and Iranian-backed militants in the eastern outskirts of Damascus and southern and southeastern Syria.