WASHINGTON — The United States launched airstrikes in eastern Syria against militant sites linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps after a suspected Iranian drone killed an American contractor and wounded six other Americans, the Pentagon said.
The retaliatory strikes came hours after the self-destructing drone struck a maintenance facility at a coalition base in northeastern Syria on Thursday, the Pentagon said in a statement. One US contractor was killed and another contractor and five US service members were injured.
US intelligence analysts concluded that the drone was of “Iranian origin”, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III responded by ordering airstrikes against facilities in eastern Syria used by groups affiliated with the Corps. the Islamic Revolutionary Guard of Iran, or IRGC.
“As President Biden has made clear, we will take all necessary steps to defend our people and we will always respond at the time and place we choose,” Mr. Austin said. “No group will attack our troops with impunity.”
US Air Force F-15E fighter jets attacked an ammunition warehouse, a control building and an intelligence gathering site, two senior US military officials said.
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US airstrikes killed eight pro-Iranian fighters, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group in Britain that tracks the conflict through contacts in Syria.
The attacks are likely to stoke tensions with Iran, which Biden administration officials call the biggest security threat in the Middle East.
“Iran’s vast and well-resourced proxy forces are spreading instability throughout the region and threatening our regional partners,” Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, head of the Army’s Central Command, said Thursday in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is a powerful branch of Iran’s military that operates in parallel with the military. It is in charge of securing Iran’s borders, and its overseas arm, the Quds Force, carries out operations throughout the Middle East and beyond, training and arming Shiite militias operating in various countries. The United States has designated it as a terrorist group.
Iran has built increasingly sophisticated weapon-capable drones in recent years. He sold them commercially to other nations, including Russia for use in the war in Ukraine, and increased their transfer to power groups.
The drones are part of a rapidly evolving threat from Iranian proxies in Syria, with militia forces specialized in operating more sophisticated weaponry hitting some of the most sensitive US targets in strikes that evaded US defenses.
Two of the injured service members were treated at the scene, while the other three service members and the contractor were medically evacuated to coalition medical facilities in Iraq. The Pentagon did not identify the contractor who died, pending notification of the family, a senior military official said.
The United States still has more than 900 troops and hundreds of other contractors in Syria, working with Kurdish fighters to ensure there is no resurgence of Islamic State, which was apparently defeated as a self-declared caliphate in 2019 after five years of wreaking havoc. in Iraq and Syria.
Iranian-backed militias have launched dozens of attacks on or near US troop bases in the past year alone. US forces and their coalition partners including the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces have been working together to keep up the pressure on Islamic State militants and to ensure detained fighters do not return to the battlefield.
Syrian Kurdish forces carry out targeted attacks against members of the Islamic State. They also protect more than 10,000 jailed Islamic State fighters, while the Pentagon and US troops provide air support, intelligence and reconnaissance.
With the Biden administration focused on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a possible future conflict with China, the military mission against the Islamic State in Syria has become a secondary issue.
The mission has received greater attention only as Iranian-backed militias or Islamic State militants attack US troops moving in and out, for nine months straight, at a handful of bases in northeast Syria, than General Mark A Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited this month.
The United States has repeatedly carried out airstrikes in response. In June 2021, it will Attacked facilities used by two Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria that the Pentagon said had carried out drone strikes against US personnel in Iraq. In December 2019, the US military hit five targets in Iraq and Syria controlled by an Iranian-backed paramilitary group in retaliation for a rocket attack that killed a US contractor.
Juan Yoon contributed reporting from Seoul.