According to the Military, a drone attack in northeast Syria on Thursday resulted in the deaths of one American contractor and five American service members in addition to another American contractor.
According to a U.S. Defense Department statement released late Thursday, a U.S. intelligence assessment indicated that the “one-way unmanned aerial vehicle” that targeted a maintenance facility on a coalition base near Hasakah was “of Iranian origin.”
Following the event, which occurred shortly after 1:30 p.m. local time, two of the injured service members received treatment on the scene, while the other three, along with the American contractor, were transported to coalition medical facilities in Iraq.
What they say is this: According to a statement from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, President Biden directed him to permit.
The airstrikes were carried out in reaction to today’s incident as well as a string of recent assaults by organizations linked to the IRGC against Coalition forces in Syria, he said.
Austin continued, “We will always respond at a time and location of our choosing and will take all necessary steps to defend our people, as President Biden has made clear. “No faction will attack our soldiers without consequence.”
Officials from Iran and Syria did not immediately respond to questions about the occurrences.
The broad strokes: Following the defeat of ISIS in 2019, the former president Trump declared the evacuation of thousands of American troops from Syria; yet, only about 900 troops are still stationed there.
Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, head of US Central Command, spoke before Congress on Thursday.
“The Iranian regime now holds the largest and most capable unmanned aerial vehicle force in the region,” he told the House Armed Services Committee.
“What Iran does to hide its hand is they use Iranian proxies,” Kurilla said. “That’s either UAVs or rockets to be able to attack our forces in either Iraq or Syria.”
