One US contractor was killed and 5 servicemen had been wounded after an “Iranian” drone assault focused American amenities in northeastern Syria, Pentagon says.
(Reuters Archive)
The US navy has stated it carried out precision air strikes in jap Syria in response to a drone assault that killed one American contractor and injured 5 US service personnel.
A Division of Protection assertion stated on Thursday the US contractor had been killed and the others wounded “after a one-way unmanned aerial automobile struck a upkeep facility on a Coalition base close to Hasakah in northeast Syria.”
One other US contractor was additionally injured within the UAV assault, the Pentagon stated, including that the US intelligence neighborhood “assessed the UAV to be of Iranian origin.”
Protection Secretary Lloyd Austin stated that on the path of President Joe Biden, he had authorised “precision airstrikes tonight in jap Syria in opposition to amenities utilized by teams affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.”
“The air strikes had been carried out in response to as we speak’s assault in addition to a sequence of current assaults in opposition to Coalition forces in Syria by teams affiliated with the IRGC,” he added.
Tons of of US troops are in Syria as a part of a coalition preventing in opposition to remnants of the Daesh group and have ceaselessly been focused in assaults by militia teams.
The US troops assist the YPG/PKK beneath the title of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) as a software to combat Daesh within the area.
PKK is listed as a international terrorist organisation by the US, the EU and regional powers.
READ MORE:
US ‘continues to provide’ navy coaching to YPG/PKK terrorists in Syria
#BREAKING: The US navy carried out “precision airstrikes” in Syria on after 5 US service members and a contractor had been injured in a suspecred Iranaian suicide drone assault earlier as we speak. pic.twitter.com/QvsD63D70B
— Moshe Schwartz (@YWNReporter) March 24, 2023
Drone assaults
The Pentagon stated two of the service members injured on Thursday had been handled onsite, whereas the three different troops and one US contractor had been medically evacuated to Iraq.
“As President Biden has made clear, we are going to take all mandatory measures to defend our individuals and can all the time reply at a time and place of our selecting,” Austin stated.
When the strikes had been introduced, Biden had already travelled to Canada, the place he’s set to fulfill with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and handle Parliament.
Final August, Biden ordered related retaliatory strikes within the oil-rich Syrian province of Deir Ezzor after a number of drones focused a coalition outpost, with out inflicting any casualties.
That assault got here the identical day that Iranian state media introduced a Revolutionary Guard common had been killed days earlier whereas “on a mission in Syria as a navy adviser.”
Iran says it has deployed its forces in Syria on the invitation of Damascus and solely as advisers.
The IRGC is the ideological arm of the Iranian navy and is blacklisted as a terrorist group by america.
READ MORE: US, Jordan in talks to forestall Iran ‘takeover’ in southern Syria
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