The Pentagon said in a statement that an American contractor was killed and five American soldiers and a second American contractor were wounded when a drone suspected of being linked to Iran attacked a coalition military base in northeastern Syria late on Thursday.
The Pentagon said it had conducted retaliatory airstrikes on facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“As President Biden has made clear, we will take all necessary measures to defend our people and we will always respond at a time and place of our choosing. No group will strike our forces with impunity,” US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a separate statement. He said the air strikes came in response to Thursday’s attack, as well as a series of recent attacks targeting coalition forces in Syria.
There was no immediate reaction from the Iranian government. Iran’s diplomatic mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
the The Syrian Observatory for Human RightsThe London-based war-watching group said the US air strikes had killed eight pro-Iranian fighters in Syria.
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Austin said in his statement that two wounded US service members were treated at the base. The three additional service members and the US contractor have been evacuated to medical facilities in neighboring Iraq.
There are about 900 American soldiers and an unknown number of American military contractors in Syria, an ongoing presence to put pressure on the remnants of the Islamic State and try to limit Iran’s influence in Syria. This is not the first time President Joe Biden has authorized strikes against pro-Iranian fighters in Syria.
Biden’s first military action as president, in late February 2021, was to order airstrikes against Iranian-backed militias in Syria in response to attacks on US and coalition forces in Iraq. Iran’s proxy groups have been carrying out attacks on US forces in Syria and Iraq for several years, but the pace escalated after a US drone strike killed them in January 2020. Major General Qassem Soleimani, a senior Iranian commander, during his visit to Baghdad with senior Iraqi security officials.
The US Congress is considering repealing bills from 1991 to 2002 that would have allowed the use of force against the Iraqi government during the Iraq War, the 20th anniversary of which was celebrated on Monday. This bill is known as the Authorization of Military Force, or AUMF. Some lawmakers also want to repeal or update the separate US Administration Act of 2001 that grew out of President George W. Bush’s “global war on terror” and the post-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan. The 2001 authorization was extended to allow the United States to target armed groups in Syria, Pakistan, the Philippines, and beyond.
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