US forces conducted “precision airstrikes” in eastern Syria after a drone attack killed one American and injured six others, the Pentagon announced late Thursday.
The drone attack took place around 1:38 p.m. Thursday (10:38 GMT) against a maintenance facility at a base near Hasakah in northeastern Syria, the Pentagon said in a statement.
US intelligence considers the drone to be “of Iranian origin”, the Pentagon added.
The deceased is an American contractor, and the injured are five soldiers and another contractor, also Americans, according to the same source.
“I have authorized United States Central Command forces to conduct precision airstrikes tonight in eastern Syria against facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps,” he said. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was quoted in the statement.
“The airstrikes were carried out in response to today’s attack as well as a series of recent attacks on coalition forces in Syria by groups affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard Corps,” said he specified.
Several hundred American soldiers are in Syria as part of a coalition fighting against the remnants of the Islamic State (IS) group. They are frequently targeted in attacks by militias.
US troops support the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the de facto army of the Kurds in the region, which led the battle that ousted IS from the last territories it controlled in Syria in 2019.
