Five pro-Iran fighters said killed in drone strike near Syria-Iraq border

Five Iran-backed fighters were killed today in a drone strike in Syria’s east, near the Iraqi border, a war monitor says, adding it was not clear yet who was behind the attack.

“Five pro-Iranian fighters were killed and others were injured, some severely… after an unknown drone targeted the military vehicle they were in… near the Syrian-Iraqi border,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The strike occurred in Syria’s eastern Deir Ezzor province, where Iran wields significant influence and which is regularly targeted by Israel and the United States, according to the Britain-based monitor with a network of sources inside Syria.

SOHR, run by a single person, has regularly been accused by Syrian war analysts of false reporting and inflating casualty numbers as well as inventing them wholesale.