Pentagon confirms four new attacks on US military bases by Iranian-backed proxies

On Thursday, the Department of Defense announced that Iranian-backed groups carried out four new attacks on American troops in the Middle East in retaliation for a defensive airstrike on an Iranian facility in Syria.

Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said during a press brief that the latest attacks targeted four US military bases and were in retaliation for a US airstrike conducted on Wednesday that targeted a major weapons facility in Syria used by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iranian-backed militants, according to The Hill.

"We were able to render that building pretty much non-usable," Singh said, speaking on the damage done to the facility.

The US airstrikes were conducted in response to Iranian-backed Houthi militants shooting down an MQ-9 Reaper drone off the coast of Yemen.

Singh did not specify which US bases were recently targeted, but reported that there have been a total of 46 attacks on US military bases since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. These included 24 attacks in Iraq and 22 in Syria. The Pentagon said 56 US troops have been injured in the attacks, and all have involved explosive rockets and drones.

"If these attacks continue against our personnel, we won't hesitate at a time and place of our choosing to respond again," Singh told reporters.

In response to the assaults on American bases, the United States military has increased its presence in the Middle East to deter adversaries from exploiting Israel's conflict with Hamas terrorists and escalating the conflict into a regional one.

"We want to make sure we can contain this conflict to Israel and Hamas and we have not seen this conflict widen," Singh said during the briefing. "We are sending a message and I think the message has been received."

However, the Biden administration has been criticized by Republicans for allowing the attacks on US troops to occur in the first place.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said in a statement: "The message to terrorists must be clear: attacks on U.S. servicemembers, assets, and interests will not be tolerated. Hitting a storage facility should not be the final response by the U.S."

The United States vowed to back Israel in its fight against Hamas, following the brutal terrorist attack that occurred on Oct. 7. Hamas invaded Israel at daybreak and slaughtered more than 1400 Israeli civilian men, women, and children in the most heinous act of terror Israel has seen since 1973.