US-led coalition spokesperson Col. Wayne Marotto denied rumors and claims of an attack earlier in the evening on Sunday targeting US forces in Syria. “There is no truth to the reports that US forces in Syria were attacked by rockets today.” The alleged incident came a week after a similar attack by pro-Iranian groups targeting an area where US forces are believed to be present in eastern Syria.
Earlier in the evening reports from locals had said rockets or RPGs or some other munitions had been used to target US troops near the Al-Omar oil field. The Associated Press and others reported the incident. However the coalition, which has hundreds of troops in eastern Syria supporting the Syrian Democratic Forces, pushed back on these claims. Nafiseh Kohhnavard of the BBC tweeted that the coalition had said in fact there was 100 percent calm and that it was all propaganda.
The propaganda serves the pro-Iranian agenda across the region of portraying the US as under attack. It is not the first time disinformation was used to claim that pro-Iran groups had struck US facilities. In fact the same groups and media networks linked to them have also put out outlandish reports in recent months of targeting “Mossad” in Iraq.
Iran’s Fars News and Tasnim both put up headlines claiming the US had been targeted in Syria and that “explosions” were heard. Others put online images of smoke at dusk allegedly from Syria. It was not clear what caused the smoke.
A June 23 attack alleged to have taken place in Baghdad was also said to be disinformation. Nevertheless the attacks on June 29 in the wake of US airstrikes on Albukamal, targeting pro-Iran drone facilities, was a real attack. That attack came in the wake of another attack with drones on Erbil in Iraq, part of a wider and growing drone threat in Iraq by pro-Iran groups. These groups also operate in Syria. The messaging from Iran is that more attacks could target the US in Syria.