A strike by a suspected Iranian-made drone killed a US contractor and wounded five American troops and another contractor in northeast Syria on Thursday, the Pentagon said.
American forces said they retaliated soon after with «precision airstrikes» in Syria targeting facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran›s Revolutionary Guard, with activist groups saying they killed at least four people.
The attack and the US response threaten to upend recent efforts to deescalate tensions across the wider Middle East, whose rival powers have made steps towards détente in recent days after years of turmoil.
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the American intelligence community had determined the drone was of Iranian origin but offered no other immediate evidence to support the claim.
«The airstrikes were conducted in response to today›s attack as well as a series of recent attacks against coalition forces in Syria» by groups affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard, Austin said. Iran relies on a network of proxy forces through the Mideast to counter the US and Israel, its arch regional enemies.
The Pentagon said two of the wounded service members were treated on-site, while three others and the injured contractor were transported to medical facilities in Iraq. Overnight, videos on social media purported to show explosions in Syria›s Deir el-Zour, a strategic province that borders Iraq and contains oil fields.
Iran-backed militia groups and Syrian forces control the area, which has also seen suspected Israeli airstrikes in recent months allegedly targeting Iranian supply routes. Iran and Syria did not immediately acknowledge the strikes, nor did their officials at the United Nations in New York respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.
The activist group Deir Ezzor 24 put the death toll from the American strikes at four people. Deir Ezzor 24, which covers news in Deir el-Zour province, said the strikes hit the city of Deir el-Zour as well as militia posts near Mayadeen and Boukamal. It said the strikes also wounded people, including Iraqis.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, reported that the American strikes killed six Iranian-backed fighters at an arms depot in the Harabesh neighborhood in the city of Deir el-Zour.
The Observatory, which relies on a network of local contacts in Syria, said US bombings at a post near the town of Mayadeen killed two fighters. A separate American strike hit a military post near the town of Boukamal along the border with Iraq, killing another three fighters, the Observatory said. The AP could not immediately independently confirm the activist reports.
Iran›s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which answers only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been suspected of carrying out attacks with bomb-carrying drones across the wider Middle East.
