Washington, August 15 (RHC)-- The Pentagon has announced that as many as eight American forces suffered traumatic brain injury (TBI) during a recent attack on their base in northeastern Syria.

“Following the attack, out of an abundance of caution, eight service members were transported to a separate location for further assessment and evaluation. All eight received treatment for TBI and smoke inhalation,” Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said at a press conference earlier this week.  Ryder claimed that three of the troops had returned to duty, while the others remained under observation.

Over the weekend, Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen television network reported that the forces deployed to the US-occupied Kharab al-Jir Airbase in Syria’s province of Hasakah had come under a drone attack from nearby areas.

The report said ‏several explosions had been heard inside the outpost after the explosive-laden unmanned aerial vehicle struck the site.  This is the third major attack to target the American troops in the region in less than two weeks.

Also on Tuesday, Iraqi resistance forces fired four missiles towards the US military base located inside the Washington-occupied Conoco gas field in eastern Syria.

On August 5, a rocket attack targeted the U.S.-occupied Ain al-Assad Airbase in the western Iraqi province of al-Anbar, injuring several American personnel members.  No person or group claimed responsibility for that attack, but Iraqi resistance groups said afterwards that it marked a ”new phase of escalation against American bases.”

The incidents come amid outrage among regional resistance groups at the United States’ continued occupation of several military outposts in Iraq and Syria under the pretext of fighting the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group, which Baghdad, Damascus, and their allies had defeated back in 2017.

The groups have, meanwhile, been fuming over the US’s outright political and military support for the Israeli regime’s ongoing war of genocide against the Gaza Strip. The brutal military onslaught has claimed the lives of nearly 40,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, since last October.

Reporting last Wednesday, Lebanon’s al-Akhbar newspaper also quoted one of the leaders of Harakat Hezbollah Nujaba, an Iraqi resistance group, as saying that “targeting American bases and interests has become an urgent matter.”

Among other things, he put the urgency down to reported involvement of Iraq-based American bases in the Israeli atrocities against Palestinians and resistance figures.