3 booby-trapped drones hit 2 U.S. military bases in Syria, Iraq

BAGHDAD, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Three booby-trapped drones on Saturday hit two U.S. military bases, one in Syria and the other in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

An armed group calling itself the "Islamic Resistance in Iraq," which is an umbrella body for Iranian-backed Iraqi militias, claimed launching two of the drones in an online statement.

The statement said that the drones hit their targets in the U.S. military base in the Rumailan area in northeastern Syria, without providing further details.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, confirmed that a U.S. base in the Rumailan area was attacked by two drones from the Iraqi territories and that no casualties were reported.

Separately, a Kurdish security source anonymously told Xinhua that a booby-trapped drone attacked Harir Airbase outside the city of Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish region, at noon.

The attack caused minor damage to the airbase, the source said, adding that no armed group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack on the air base.

The recent attacks by armed groups in Iraq and Syria are believed to be part of a series of retaliatory measures against the U.S. forces amid the ongoing conflict between U.S.-backed Israel and Hamas, a Palestinian faction, in the Gaza Strip, according to the observatory.