According to local reports, as many as five drones were involved in the attack, including at least one suicide drone, with “some coming from Iraq-Syria border," a source told a BBC reporter. There are no reports of casualties at present.
The identity of the attackers is so far unknown. A spokesperson for US Central Command told Sky News Arabia that initial assessments suggested "Iran-backed militias" had attacked the base.
CENTCOM later clarified to the BBC that “both unmanned aerial systems and indirect fire" were used against at-Tanf, and said that “We maintain the inherent right of self-defense and will respond at a time and place of our choosing.”
The remote desert base, located along the M2 Baghdad-Damascus highway near Syria's border with Iraq and Jordan, has been held by American troops since early 2016, when the base was used to train so-called "moderate rebels" fighting against the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad.
Last week, an Israeli Air Force air attack against Syrian infrastructure near Palmyra was launched from near the at-Tanf base. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, Israel used the cover of civilian aircraft passing through the same airspace in order to deny Syrian air defense systems the opportunity to shoot down their missiles.
On October 14, the command of the Allied Operations Room of Syria, the pro-Syrian, anti-Daesh* alliance of forces that includes advisers from Hezbollah and Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), pledged to respond to the Palmyra attack.
“For years, we have been subjected to attacks from the Israeli and American enemy in an attempt to drag us into side battles that were not a priority for our presence in Syria. The Zionists’ excuse [for the attacks] was that they were targeting precision weapons and sensitive equipment that posed a threat to their usurping entity,” the statement said.
“Based on the above, and after the attack that was launched through the skies of Jordan and the US-occupied Syrian area of al-Tanf, the command of the Allied Operations Room has taken a decision to respond to this attack in retaliation for the lives of the martyrs and the blood of the wounded. The response will be very harsh,” it continued.
US forces located in Syria, which are deployed at At-Tanf and across the eastern Deir-ez-Zor, Raqqa and Al-Hasakah provinces, are not present with the permission of the Syrian government in Damascus.
* A terrorist group outlawed in Russia and many other countries.