Iraqi militia

U.S. troops came under rocket fire in Syria on June 28, but escaped injury, in apparent retaliation for weekend U.S. air strikes against Iran-aligned militia in Syria and Iraq.

A U.S. military spokesman said U.S. forces had responded to the multiple rockets by firing back at the positions in self-defense.

At least eight fighters of the pro-Iranian paramilitary Hashd al-Shaabi have been killed in eastern Syria, the Observatory said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the planes targeted positions belonging to pro-Iranian militias in the Boukamal area, near the border with Iraq.

Tens of thousands of Iranians thronged the streets of Tehran on Jan. 6 for the funeral of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani who was killed in a U.S. airstrike last week and his daughter said his death would bring a "dark day" for the United States.

Turkey has joined an international diplomatic campaign to defuse tension between the United States and Iran after the assassination of the latter's top military figure with calls on all related parties to act with restraint and common sense to avoid a larger conflict in an already unstable Middle East.

Hundreds of Iraqi mourners stormed the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad on Dec. 31, following deadly U.S. airstrikes this week that killed 25 fighters from an Iran-backed Shiite militia in Iraq.

Shouting "Down, Down USA!" the crowd tried to push inside the embassy grounds, hurling water bottles and smashing security cameras outside.

Some 32 militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) were killed in a Turkish Armed Force operation in Bashiqa near Mosul on April 19 after the militants launched an attack on a tank belonging to the Turkish army in the Bashiqa training camp. 

One Turkish soldier was killed on March 26 when a rocket projectile fired from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) region hit the Bashiqa camp near Mosul in northern Iraq, marking the first such Turkish casualty in the camp.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu has suggested Turkey could not count on support from Arab countries in the event of a military intervention into Syria, during an interview with Qatar-based news broadcaster Al Jazeera.

Turkish soldiers in northern Iraq's Bashiqa Camp have been under continuous attack by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), while around 200 militants from the jihadist group have been killed in retaliation, military sources told daily Hürriyet.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has appealed to Turkey to pull its troops out of Iraqi territory and instead provide training and equipment to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), one day after he held a meeting with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden at the World Economic Forum in Davos.