Former Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller joined'Fox & Friends' to discuss the latest on the escalation in the Middle East as the U.S. continues to strike Iranian proxies. A drone attack late Sunday evening that struck a military base in eastern Syria, where U.S. troops are stationed, left at least six allied Kurdish soldiers dead, officials said. The attack hit a training ground at al-Omar base in Syria's eastern province of Deir el-Zour, the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said in a statement Monday. According to the statement, the drone attack struck an area where the forces' commando units were being trained. No U.S. troops were killed or injured in the attack, they said.

An Iran-backed militia group in Iraq says it is suspending attacks on U.S. troops after a drone attack killed three soldiers early Sunday, but the Department of Defense is casting doubt on those claims. The Iraq-based Kataeb Hezbollah said Tuesday it was suspending "military and security operations against the occupying forces to avoid any embarrassment for the Iraqi government." Gen. Ryder speaks during a press briefing at the Pentagon on Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024 in Washington. The group is one of multiple Iranian proxies in the region that are believed responsible for carrying out attacks on U.S. targets in Iraq, Syria, and, most recently, Jordan over the past several months. The groups say the attacks are in retaliation for U.S. support of Israel in its ongoing offensive against Hamas militants in Gaza and the mounting death toll of Palestinian civilians.

Air defenses failed to stop an attack on a U.S. military outpost in Jordan on Sunday that killed three American soldiers at least in part because the hostile drone approached its target at the same time an American drone was returning to the base, two U.S. officials said on Monday. The enemy drone was mistaken for an American surveillance drone returning to the remote resupply base, and air defenses were not immediately engaged, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss preliminary findings of a major cause of the episode. Two other drones that attacked other locations nearby in southeast Syria were shot down, they added. The Wall Street Journal earlier reported the drone mix-up, now at the heart of an investigation by the military's Central Command into the deadly attack that has drawn vows of retaliation from President Biden, raised doubts about American military defenses in the Middle East, and begged anew questions about the administration's efforts to deter attacks by Iran-backed militias against merchant vessels, warships and military bases in the region. The attack on Sunday killed three U.S. Army Reserve soldiers, the first known American military fatalities from hostile fire in the turmoil spilling over from Israel's war with Hamas.

For the second time in nearly two weeks, the United States carried out airstrikes against a facility used by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and its proxies in eastern Syria early Thursday, ratcheting up retaliation for a steady stream of rocket and drone attacks against American forces in Iraq and Syria. The strikes by two Air Force F-15E jets against a weapons warehouse in Deir al Zour Province, Syria, came after U.S. airstrikes on Oct. 27 against similar targets in eastern Syria failed to deter Iran or its proxies in Syria and Iraq, which the Biden administration has blamed for the attacks. Not only have the attacks continued -- there have been at least 22 more since the American retaliatory strikes last month -- but Pentagon officials said they have become more dangerous. Iran-backed militias have packed even larger loads of explosives -- more than 80 pounds -- onto drones launched at American bases, U.S. officials said. "This precision self-defense strike is a response to a series of attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria by I.R.G.C.-Quds Force affiliates," Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said in a statement.

Yemen's Houthi militia claimed an attempted attack on southern Israel on Tuesday, saying it had launched a "large batch" of ballistic and cruise missiles as well as drones toward Israeli targets. The Iran-backed militia carried out the attempted assault in response to what it called "brutal Israeli-American aggression" in Gaza, the Houthi military spokesman, Yahya Sarea, said on the social media platform X. Mr. Sarea said the attack was the third operation conducted by the Houthis "in support of our persecuted brothers in Palestine," and threatened further missile and drone assaults. The Times could not independently verify the Houthi claims. On Tuesday, the Israeli military said its aerial defense system had intercepted a surface-to-surface missile fired toward Israel "from the area of the Red Sea."

Iran-backed militias in Iraq have claimed they were responsible for an attack on U.S. forces at a strategic base in southeastern Syria. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iranian-backed militias, said Monday that their forces used two drones to attack the al-Tanf garrison near the Jordanian and Iraqi borders, a sensitive location often used by Iranian-backed militants to transport weapons to Hezbollah. Monday's attack comes after a string of similar attacks on bases housing U.S. military in Iraq and Syria over the past week. In one, the same group attacked two bases in Iraq with drones, causing minor injuries among U.S. forces. The U.S. military has maintained a presence at the al-Tanf garrison since training forces as part of a campaign against the Islamic State group.

A U.S. Navy warship in the northern Red Sea on Thursday shot down three cruise missiles and several drones launched from Yemen that the Pentagon said might have been headed toward Israel. "We cannot say for certain what these missiles and drones were targeting, but they were launched from Yemen heading north along the Red Sea, potentially towards targets in Israel," Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon spokesman, told reporters. The missiles and drones were launched by pro-Iranian Houthi rebels in Yemen amid a flurry of drone attacks against American troops in Iraq and Syria over the past three days, General Ryder said. The incidents underscored the risks that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas could spiral into a wider war.

Pro-Iranian forces in Syria have said they have a "long arm" to respond to further United States air strikes on their positions, after tit-for-tat missile and drone attacks in Syria over the last 24 hours. The online statement, released late on Friday and signed by the Iranian Advisory Committee in Syria, said US air strikes had left several of their fighters dead and wounded, without specifying the fighters' nationality. "We have the capability to respond if our centres and forces in Syria are targeted," the statement said. On Friday night, two Syrian opposition activist groups reported a new wave of US air attacks on eastern Syria, which hit positions of Iran-backed militias, after rockets were fired at bases in Syria housing US troops. Several US officials, however, denied that attacks were launched late on Friday.

Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. Iran is allegedly mulling over an attempt to assassinate the United States' ambassador to South Africa as retaliation for the American drone attack earlier this year that killed Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' elite Quds Force. The news of Tehran's purported plans was first reported by Politico, who spoke with one official familiar with the issue and another official who has seen the intelligence. If Iran does attempt to carry out the assassination, it would severely ratchet up the already tense relations between Washington and Tehran, along with giving the Trump administration impetus to retaliate.

WASHINGTON – The United States waged a series of precision airstrikes on Thursday against an Iran-backed militia in Iraq that it blamed for a major rocket attack a day earlier that killed two American troops and a 26-year-old British soldier. The U.S. strikes appeared limited in scope and narrowly tailored, targeting five weapons storage facilities used by Kataib Hezbollah militants -- including facilities used to store weaponry for past attacks on U.S.-led coalition troops, the Pentagon said. Iraq's military said in a statement that the U.S. airstrikes hit four locations in Iraq. The U.S. military did not estimate how many people in Iraq may have been killed in the strikes, which officials said were carried out by piloted aircraft. But there no was no indication of the kind of high-profile killings that President Donald Trump authorized in January, when the United States targeted a top Iranian general, Qassem Soleimani.