An American contractor was killed by a suicide drone that struck a facility on a coalition base in northeast Syria on Thursday, the Pentagon said.. Five US service members and another contractor were injured. The Defense Department said intelligence ops determined the drone was Iranian.
A U.S. contractor was killed and five U.S. service members and one U.S. contractor were wounded in a suicide drone attack on a coalition base near Hasakah in northeast Syria.
The attack occurred just before 2 p.m. local time on Thursday, as confirmed by the Defense Department in a statement. The department revealed that the drone was believed to have been of Iranian origin, according to intelligence reports.
#BREAKING: US launches air strikes against Iranian IRGC and affiliates targets in Syria in retaliation for an earlier Iranian affiliated drone strike that killed one US contractor and injured five soldiers.
Initially everyone thought the attack was Israel.
US service members… pic.twitter.com/zD8kkREKpG
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) March 24, 2023
Following the attack, the U.S. retaliated with airstrikes on Iranian-linked targets in the area. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that the precision airstrikes were authorized by President Biden and conducted by U.S. Central Command forces in eastern Syria.
The strikes targeted facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), in response to the recent attacks on coalition forces in Syria suspected to be engineered by IRGC-affiliated groups.
American contractor loses life in Iran-linked drone attack
General Michael “Erik” Kurilla, the commander of U.S. Central Command, testified before Congress on Thursday that there have been 78 attacks against facilities housing U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria since January 2021.
The majority of these attacks, carried out by drones and rockets, are believed to have been carried out by Iran or Iranian-backed proxies.
