On Thursday, a suspected Iranian-made drone killed a U.S. contractor and wounded six other Americans in northeast Syria, where 900 American troops are stationed.
In response, President Biden authorized a series of retaliatory strikes against Iran-affiliated groups in the region.
The strikes reportedly killed at least eight Iranians.
Following the U.S. airstrikes, Iran proxy forces launched around seven rockets at a U.S. base near the Al-Omar oil field in northeast Syria on Friday, Fox News reports.
Thankfully, there were no U.S. casualties and no damage to the base.
The Department of Defense said that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps had crashed a UAV into a building near Hasakah, leaving one U.S. contractor dead and five U.S. service members and another U.S. contractor injured.
In response, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III authorized “precision airstrikes tonight in eastern Syria against facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).”
He added that the U.S. will “take all necessary measures to defend our people and will always respond at a time and place of our choosing.”
The U.S. strikes reportedly killed at least eight Iranians, including six at an arms depot in Harabesh and two at a post near the town of Mayadeen.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, reported another American strike on a military post near the town of Boukamal, near the border with Iraq. This report has not been independently verified.
The U.S. has roughly 900 troops stationed in Syria, and the Pentagon said that the U.S. took “proportionate and deliberate action” to limit the risk of escalation in its targeted response.
Three service members and the U.S. contractor who were wounded in the initial attack were medically evacuated to Coalition medical facilities in Iraq while the other two wounded service members were treated on-site.
“As President Biden has made clear, no group will strike our troops with impunity,” Secretary Austin said. “Our thoughts are with the family and colleagues of the contractor who was killed and with those who were wounded in the attack earlier today.”
