According to Monitor, three pro-Iranian fighters were killed in an attack in eastern Syria

A war observer said on Saturday that three pro-Iranian fighters, including at least two Iraqis, were killed in a nighttime air strike in eastern Syria near the Iraqi border.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the attack took place in Deir Ezzor province. Iran exerts considerable influence in this region, which is regularly attacked by Israel and sometimes the United States.

“Two of the dead were Iraqi nationals belonging to the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, and the third was unidentified,” the Observatory said, referring to a loose alliance of groups backed by Iran.

The UK-based observer, which relies on a network of sources in Syria, said an explosion was heard “in the area around Albukamal… a few kilometres from the Syrian-Iraqi border” at the same time as the attack.

Iraq’s Sayyed al-Shuhada Brigades announced the death of a fighter in an attack on Friday “that targeted his vehicle during a reconnaissance patrol on the Iraqi-Syrian border,” and accused the United States of being behind the attack.

Responsibility for the attack was not immediately claimed, but a spokesman for the US-led military coalition formed in 2014 to fight the jihadist group Islamic State told AFP that “neither the coalition nor US forces carried out nighttime attacks in Deir Ezzor.”

The observatory said drones flew over the area several hours before the attack.

Since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of attacks, mainly targeting army positions and Iranian-backed fighters, including the Lebanese Hezbollah group.

Israel rarely comments on individual attacks in Syria.

At the end of March, the Observatory announced that 16 fighters linked to Tehran, including a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, had been killed in attacks on eastern Syria.

A civilian working for the World Health Organization was also killed in the attacks.

Iran has long been a key ally of the Syrian government, but has repeatedly stated that it does not send combat troops to Syria but only provides officers for military advice and training.

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