Air raids over eastern Syria near Iraqi border kill 6 Iran-backed militants

Two members of Iraqi militia groups have told The Associated Press that three overnight airstrikes on eastern Syria near a strategic border crossing with Iraq killed six Iran-backed militants, The strikes early Saturday on the border region of Boukamal...

BAGHDAD -- Three overnight airstrikes on eastern Syria Saturday near a strategic border crossing with Iraq killed six Iran-backed militants, two members of Iraqi militia groups told The Associated Press.

The strikes on the border region of Boukamal came hours after an umbrella group of Iran-backed Iraqi militants — known as the Islamic Resistance — claimed an attack on a U.S. military base in the city of Irbil in northern Iraq. The group has conducted over a hundred attacks on U.S. positions in Iraq and eastern Syria since the onset of the Hamas-Israel war on Oct. 7.

Four of the killed were from Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah group while the other two militants were Syrian, the militants said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not cleared to talk to the press. Another two were injured, they added.

Meanwhile, an activist collective that covers news in the area, Deir Ezzor 24, said the airstrikes hit two militant posts and a weapons warehouse that it says was recently stocked with rocket launchers and munitions.

Elsewhere, Britain-backed opposition war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in addition to the weapons warehouse, the strikes targeted a militants' convoy that had arrived from Iraq to Syria as well as a location where a militia affiliated with Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard was training.