An explosion in eastern Syria on Wednesday killed at least three people, The Associated Press reported. A war monitoring group said the blast was likely caused by a drone strike that targeted Iran-backed militiamen.
No group claimed responsibility for an attack in the area and reports about what had happened were sketchy.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said four people died when the strike hit a building housing Iran-backed militiamen in the province of Deir el-Zour. It said eight people were wounded.
A local activist collective, Deir Ezzor 24, reported that the building was used as base for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, a key ally of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.
Syrian state media, however, claimed that a mine “left by terrorists” — a term often used by the government for opposition forces battling the Syrian army — detonated in the area, killing three people and wounding seven.
Syria’s 12-year civil war has killed at least 300,000 people and displaced half the country’s population of 23 million.
The Islamic State (ISIS) took advantage of the war and overran large swathes of Syria and neighboring Iraq in 2014, proclaiming a "caliphate" in land it controlled.
Several military offensives, including those backed by the US-led international coalition, have since seen ISIS lose most areas it once controlled, including the loss of their de facto capital in Raqqa, Syria.
However, ISIS sleeper calls remain in the area continue to carry out deadly attacks in Syria and Iraq. US raids in the area regularly target ISIS members and leaders.
Just last month, an ISIS leader was killed in a US helicopter raid on northeast Syria. Two months ago, American forces captured two ISIS members during an air and ground assault in eastern Syria.
Past attacks on Iranian and Iranian-linked targets in eastern Syria have been attributed to Israel, which rarely acknowledges its involvement in such attacks.
On Monday, an air strike attributed to Israel shut down the Aleppo airport. The attack reportedly struck targets belonging to Iranian militias at the airport.
Syria and Iran later accused Israel of a “double crime”, as the Aleppo airport was used for the arrival of humanitarian aid" to victims of the quake which killed around 6,000 people in Syria.