U.S. Contractor Killed in Drone Attack on Base in Syria

WASHINGTON — A U.S. contractor was killed and one other contractor and 5 U.S. service members have been injured when a self-destructing drone struck a upkeep facility on a coalition base in northeast Syria on Thursday, the Pentagon mentioned in a press release.

U.S. intelligence analysts concluded that the drone was of “Iranian origin,” in response to the Pentagon assertion, which mentioned the assault occurred close to Hasaka at 1:38 p.m. native time.

In response, at President Biden’s course, Protection Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III mentioned he ordered airstrikes towards amenities in jap Syria utilized by teams affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, or I.R.G.C.

“The airstrikes have been performed in response to at present’s assault in addition to a sequence of current assaults towards coalition forces in Syria by teams affiliated with the I.R.G.C.,” Mr. Austin mentioned in a press release launched late Thursday.

“These precision strikes are meant to guard and defend U.S. personnel,” the assertion mentioned. “The USA took proportionate and deliberate motion meant to restrict the danger of escalation and reduce casualties.”

United States Air Pressure F-15E fighter jets attacked a munition warehouse, a management constructing and an intelligence-collection website, two senior U.S. navy officers mentioned.

The U.S. airstrikes killed eight pro-Iran fighters in jap Syria, in response to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a gaggle in Britain that tracks the battle by means of contacts in Syria.

Rami Abdurrahman, its director, mentioned on Friday that the strikes had focused a weapons depot within the metropolis of Deir Ezzor, killing six fighters, and that two different fighters had been killed by strikes within the desert of Mayadeen and close to the city of Bukamal. A United States official confirmed the areas of the American retaliatory strikes, however not the casualty stories.

“As President Biden has made clear, we’ll take all vital measures to defend our individuals and can all the time reply at a time and place of our selecting,” Mr. Austin mentioned. “No group will strike our troops with impunity.”

The assaults are more likely to stoke tensions with Iran, which Biden administration officers name the most important safety menace within the Center East.

“Iran’s huge and deeply resourced proxy forces unfold instability all through the area and threaten our regional companions,” Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, the pinnacle of the navy’s Central Command, mentioned in testimony to the Home Armed Companies Committee earlier on Thursday.

Common Kurilla warned that American forces may perform further strikes if wanted. “We’re postured for scalable choices within the face of any further Iranian assaults,” he mentioned in a press release late Thursday.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps is a robust department of Iran’s armed forces that operates in parallel with the navy. It’s charged with securing Iran’s borders, and its abroad arm, the Quds Pressure, carries out operations throughout the Center East and past, and trains and arms Shiite proxy militias that function in a variety of international locations. The U.S. has designated it a terrorist group.

Iran has constructed more and more refined weapons-capable drones in recent times. It has each bought them commercially to different nations, together with to Russia to be used within the battle in Ukraine, and stepped up their switch to proxy teams.

The drones are a part of a quickly evolving menace from Iranian proxies in Syria, with militia forces specialised in working extra refined weaponry hitting among the most delicate American targets in assaults that evaded U.S. defenses.

Two of the wounded service members have been handled on website, whereas the three different service members and the contractor have been medically evacuated to coalition medical amenities in Iraq. The Pentagon didn’t determine the contractor who was killed, pending notification of household, a senior navy official mentioned.

America nonetheless has greater than 900 troops, and a whole bunch extra contractors, in Syria, working with Kurdish fighters to verify there isn’t a resurgence of the Islamic State, which was ostensibly defeated as a self-declared caliphate in 2019, after 5 years of wreaking havoc throughout Iraq and Syria.

Iranian-backed militias have launched dozens of assaults at or close to bases the place U.S. troops are up to now yr alone. U.S. and accomplice forces with a coalition that features the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces have been working collectively to maintain strain on Islamic State militants and to make sure that detained fighters don’t find yourself again on the battlefield.

The Kurdish Syrian forces conduct focused raids towards Islamic State members. Additionally they guard greater than 10,000 imprisoned Islamic State fighters, whereas the Pentagon and American troops present air assist, intelligence and reconnaissance.

With the Biden administration centered on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a possible future battle with China, the counter-Islamic State navy mission in Syria has grow to be one thing of a back-burner situation.

The mission has acquired better consideration solely when Iranian-backed militias or Islamic State militants assault the American troops who rotate out and in, for 9 months at a time, throughout a handful of bases in northeast Syria, which Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Workers, visited this month.

The USA has repeatedly carried out airstrikes in response. In June 2021, it struck amenities utilized by two Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria that the Pentagon mentioned had performed drone strikes towards American personnel in Iraq. In December 2019, the U.S. navy struck 5 targets in Iraq and Syria managed by an Iranian-backed paramilitary group in retaliation for a rocket assault that killed an American contractor.

John Yoon contributed reporting from Seoul.