US says it carried out strike against ‘imminent threat’ in Syria

The Pentagon has confirmed that the United States carried out a strike against military assets in eastern Syria after a rocket attack near one of its bases.

Pentagon spokesperson Pat Ryder told reporters on Tuesday that the US military struck weapons systems — including rocket launchers and a tank — that “presented a clear and imminent threat” to its forces in the area.

The US strike comes as violence escalates across the war-torn country. Over the last week, armed opposition groups carried out a blistering offensive in northwest Syria against the government forces led by President Bashar al-Assad, ushering in a new stage of the country’s long-running civil war.

The offensive has raised questions about how the US might respond and whether it could become entangled in the conflict, given its significant military presence in Syria.

Ryder said on Tuesday that the attack was in response to a rocket launch that fell “in the vicinity” of Military Support Site (MSS) Euphrates, a US base in eastern Syria.The Pentagon spokesperson stressed that the action is “not linked to any broader activities in northwest Syria by other groups”.