Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testify before the House Appropriations Committee in Washington on March 23, 2023. The Pentagon said it carried out airstrikes in Syria on Thursday night, hours after an unmanned aerial vehicle struck a coalition base in the country, killing an American contractor and wounding five U.S. troops and another contractor. (Alexander Kubitza/U.S. Navy)
The U.S. carried out airstrikes in Syria on Thursday hours after a drone struck a coalition base, killing an American contractor and wounding five U.S. troops as well as another contractor, according to a Pentagon statement.
The airstrikes targeted facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in the statement Thursday.
The drone used in the attack was of Iranian origin, Austin said in a statement. It struck a maintenance facility on the base near Hasakah at approximately 1:38 p.m., the statement said.
Two of the wounded service members were treated on site, while the other troops and the contractor were evacuated to coalition medical facilities in Iraq, according to the statement.
The commander of U.S. troops in the Middle East said Thursday that more retaliatory airstrikes are possible.
“We are postured for scalable options in the face of any additional Iranian attacks,” Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla said in the statement.
The U.S. has about 900 troops in Syria and 2,500 in Iraq as part of efforts to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State group, U.S. Central Command has said.
Joining them in Syria and Iraq are about 6,449 Defense Department contractors.
U.S. troops and partner militaries in Iraq and Syria continue to fight ISIS, with 313 declared operations this year last year, CENTCOM said in December.
Thursday’s attack was the latest against U.S. troops in Syria by groups affiliated with Iran, the statement said.
Figures provided by CENTCOM show at least nine rocket or drone attacks since August 2022.
Iran’s drones are among the most advanced in the world and have had an outsized impact in proxy wars in Yemen, Iraq and Syria, experts and U.S. military officials have said.
Kurilla told Congress on Thursday that Iran is the “primary destabilizing element in the region.”
Previous attacks blamed on Iran include a 2020 missile strike on al Asad Air Base in Iraq that injured about 100 U.S. troops, and an incident in 2021 that killed a civilian contractor and injured a U.S. service member.
