U.S. airstrike in Syria marks a new confrontation with Iran's proxies in the Middle East.

 Coalition jets reportedly hit Syrian forces and their allies in southern Syria on Thursday, near the border with Jordan and Iraq.

Who was hit? Kataib Imam Ali, an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-backed unit that already operates around Tikrit and Mosul, Iraq, Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute wrote on Twitter Thursday.

The airstrikes took place about a 30-minute drive from a U.S.-UK special operations base in al-Tanf, Syria.

But that strike wasn't all. A follow-up attack from U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army troops reportedly destroyed four tanks of the Assad regime, as well as several trucks and a ZSU-23-4 "Shilka" self-propelled anti-aircraft system, Lister writes.

Later on Thursday, "Fars, an Iranian news agency affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, reported that 3,000 Hezbollah fighters had been sent to Tanf to back the Syrian military in its fight against the United States 'and establish security at the Palmyra-Baghdad road,'" Thanassis Cambanis of The New Century Foundation reports for The Atlantic out of Beirut.

"If U.S. troops are now engaging directly with Iranian militias, escalation in the absence of a well-wrought plan could inflame the conflict in Syria and further afield," Cambanis writes. "On the other hand, for all Iran's bluster, the Islamic Republic, a staunch ally of Syria, will have to re-calibrate its own expansionist ambitions in the Middle East if it encounters meaningful resistance from the United States after nearly a decade of only token or indirect opposition."
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His advice, after speaking with Arab leaders in the region: "For those who believe that Iran has gone too far—in Iraq, in Syria, in Lebanon, and in Yemen—any forceful pushback is welcome. But the United States needs to be careful. Boxing in Iran and its proxies could advance U.S. interests and restore the regional balance of power, but only if military force is deployed as part of a careful strategy that maintains America's distance from Iran's problematic allies."

The problem with that: "So far, there are no indications that the Trump administration is doing any of the necessary groundwork to insure against blowback or out-of-control spiraling as America appears to turn from accommodation and containment to military force." Much more to all that, over here.
To its credit, the coalition came out with a statement on the strikes shortly after the news broke. Their portrayal: "The coalition struck pro-regime forces that were advancing well inside an established de-confliction zone northwest of At Tanf, Syria, May 18, and that posed a threat to U.S. and partner forces at At Tanf."

Making matters a bit tricky for Moscow—which, of course, backs the Assad regime and its Iranian proxies—they added, "This action was taken after apparent Russian attempts to dissuade Syrian pro-regime movement south towards At Tanf were unsuccessful, a coalition aircraft show of force, and the firing of warning shots."

Russia's reaction this morning to the Thursday strikes: It's an instance of "government terrorism" that "is totally unacceptable; it is a violation of Syrian sovereignty. Of course, it does not help the political process," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov stated on Friday, according to state-run RT.

Mentioned by the coalition release but not by RT: the "apparent Russian attempts to dissuade Syrian pro-regime movement."

Oh, and Russia says the attack killed some civilians—but there was no elaboration on that damning charge, according to Reuters.