Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – The tensions that occur in the Middle East not only cover Israel and Palestine in Gaza, but also other areas in the region involving the United States.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said his military struck two facilities in eastern Syria used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its affiliated groups.

“This timely self-defense strike was a response to a series of ongoing and largely unsuccessful attacks on US personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iran-backed militia groups that began on October 17,” he said in a statement, Thursday (26/10 /2023), reported AFP.

Austin said a US citizen contractor died of a heart attack during the attack, and 21 US military personnel suffered minor injuries, but all had returned to duty.

The strikes in Syria followed a direct warning Thursday from President Joe Biden to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei against attacks on US troops.

“There was a direct message delivered. That’s all I can convey,” US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters, but declined to say how the message was delivered.

In his statement, Austin sought to distance attacks on facilities used by the IRGC in Syria from the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza.

“These specifically designed self-defense strikes were intended solely to protect and defend US personnel in Iraq and Syria,” he said.

“These matters are separate and distinct from the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, and do not constitute a change in our approach to the Israel-Hamas conflict,” he added.

Israeli attack

Not only the US, Israel also attacked Syrian territory the day before, for different reasons.

The Syrian Defense Ministry said an Israeli strike killed eight soldiers in southern Syria on Wednesday, then the Jewish State again bombed Aleppo airport for the fourth time in two weeks.

Israel said the first attack was a response to earlier rocket fire.

Hours later, Israeli troops attacked Aleppo airport in the north, as regional tensions escalated due to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Fighting erupted on October 7 after Hamas militants stormed the Gaza border and went on a rampage, kidnapping some 220 hostages and killing more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, Israeli officials said.

The worst attack in Israel’s history, it sparked a vicious Israeli bombing campaign that Gaza’s Hamas rulers say has so far killed 6,546 people, most of them civilians.

Continuous rocket fire and artillery exchanges on Israel’s northern border with the Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah militia and allied Palestinian factions have raised fears of a new front in the war.

Pro-Hezbollah fighters in southern Syria have also exchanged fire with Israel several times since last week.

“At around 01.45 (Tuesday), the Israeli enemy carried out an air attack from the occupied Golan Heights,” the defense ministry said of the attack that killed eight soldiers and wounded seven others.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring agency with a wide network of sources on the ground in the war-torn country, put the number of soldiers killed at 11, including four officers.

The attack “destroyed a weapons depot and Syrian air defense radar” and also targeted an infantry unit, he said.

On Tuesday evening, the Observatory said “fighters loyal to Hezbollah,” which is fighting alongside government forces in the Syrian conflict, had “launched two rockets towards the occupied Syrian Golan” from Daraa province in southern Syria.

The Israeli army said its “fighter jets attacked military infrastructure and mortars belonging to the Syrian army in response to launches towards Israel” on Tuesday.

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(luc/luc)