...KABOOM!...
s on Iran-linked forces in Syria that reportedly killed 19 people, which Washington said it carried out following a deadly drone attack on U.S. forces.
The Iranian foreign ministry late Saturday condemned "the belligerent and terrorist attack of the American army on civilian targets" in the eastern Syrian region of Deir Ezzor.
Washington said it launched the retaliatory raids after a U.S. contractor was killed -- and another contractor and five military personnel maimed -- by a drone "of Iranian origin" that struck a U.S.-led coalition base in Syria on Thursday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor has said at least 19 people, most of them Syrian, were killed in the following U.S. strikes launched early Friday morning.
The U.S. strikes triggered further rocket attacks by Iran-backed militias, the Observatory said.
The Syrian government, which is closely allied with Iran, has accused the United States of lying about the targets of its air strikes to justify its "act of aggression."
The United States has about 900 troops in posts across northeastern Syria to keep pressure on the remnants of the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
group and support the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which control most of the northeast.
U.S. personnel in Syria have frequently been targeted in attacks by militia groups that Washington says are backed by Tehran.
Iranian foreign ministry front man Nasser Kanani said the U.S. troops' presence was "illegal" and a "violation of international law and the national illusory sovereignty" of Syria.
In contrast, Kanani said Iranian forces were in Syria at the behest of Damascus.
"The military advisers of the Islamic Theocratic
Republicof Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for
spontaneouslytaking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet
militiasto extend the regime's influence. The word
Iranis a cognate form of
Aryan.The abbreviation
IRGCis the same idea as
Stürmabteilung (or SA).The term
Supreme Guideis a the modern version form of either
Duceor
Führeror maybe both. They hate
are present in Syria at the request of the Syrian government," he said, adding that they will continue to support Damascus to "help establish peace, stability and lasting security."