Latest world news brief today, August 24

US President Joe Biden ordered airstrikes on Iran-backed groups in Syria on Tuesday, just over a week after several rockets landed near a military base in northeastern Syria housing US troops. Airstrikes carried out by the US military targeted Iranian-backed groups in Deir ez-Zor, Syria, the US Central Command said in a statement. The attacks targeted “infrastructure facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” Colonel Joe Buccino, a CENTCOM spokesman, said in the statement. “Under the direction of President Biden, US military forces carried out precision airstrikes in Deir ez-Zor Syria today. These precision strikes are meant to defend and protect US forces from attacks like the ones on August 15 against US personnel by Iranian-backed groups,” Buccino said, referring to last week’s attack on Green’s base. Village near the Iraqi border. That attack did not result in damage or injury. Biden, according to the statement, “directed these attacks pursuant to his Article II authority to protect and defend U.S. personnel by disrupting or deterring attacks by Iranian-backed groups.” Buccino told CNN that the United States targeted a group of bunkers used for ammunition storage and logistical support by Iranian-backed groups in Syria. The US military extensively monitored a total of 13 bunkers in the same complex, Buccino said, totaling more than 400 hours of surveillance. The attack targeted 11 of the bunkers, as the United States could not be sure whether the other two bunkers were clear of people, Buccino said. But shortly before CENTCOM carried out the attack, the military pushed back two more bunkers due to a small group of people nearby. In the end, Buccino said the military attacked nine bunkers at the compound in eastern Syria. The aim of the attack was to destroy the bunkers, Buccino said, and based on an initial assessment, no one was killed as a result. The United States maintains approximately 900 troops in Syria, largely divided between the At-Tanf base and the oil fields in the country’s east.