Eleven pro-Iranian fighters were killed in US airstrikes in eastern Syria overnight from Thursday to Friday, carried out in response to a drone attack that killed an American and injured six others.
US forces had carried out “precision airstrikes” in eastern Syria after the “Iranian-originated” drone attack, according to the Pentagon.
“American strikes targeted an arms depot in the town of Deir Ezzor, killing six pro-Iranian fighters,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), based in the United Kingdom but which has from an extensive network of sources in Syria.
“Five other fighters were killed by strikes on positions of Iranian groups near Mayadine and on another near al-Boukamal,” added this NGO, according to which two of the eleven killed were Syrians.
Iranian groups and their allies, who are fighting alongside the regime in Damascus, are strongly established in these regions near the border with Iraq, which constitute an important crossing point for arms bound for Syria.
The drone attack took place around 1:38 p.m. local time on Thursday against a maintenance facility at a base near Al-Hasakah, the Pentagon said in a statement.
The deceased is an American contractor, and the injured are five soldiers and another contractor who are also American, according to the same source.
“I have authorized U.S. Central Command forces to conduct precision airstrikes tonight in eastern Syria against facilities used by groups affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps,” it said. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was quoted in the statement.
Coalition Against ISIS
“The airstrikes were carried out in response to today’s attack as well as a series of recent attacks on coalition forces in Syria by groups affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard Corps,” he said. he specified.
Several hundred American soldiers are in Syria as part of a coalition fighting against the remnants of the armed group Islamic State (IS). They are frequently targeted in attacks by militias.
US troops support the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the de facto army of the Kurds in the region, which led the battle that ousted IS from the last territories it controlled in Syria in 2019.
Two of the soldiers injured on Thursday were treated at the scene of the attack, while the other three soldiers and a US contractor were medically evacuated to Iraq, the Pentagon said.
“As President Biden has made clear, we will take all necessary action to defend our fellow citizens and always fight back when and where we choose,” Austin said.
Joe Biden is on an official visit to Canada.
In August 2022, the US president ordered similar retaliatory strikes in the oil-rich province of Deir Ezzor after a coalition outpost was attacked by multiple drones that left no casualties.
The attack occurred the day Iranian state media announced the death of a Revolutionary Guard general, killed a few days earlier, “during a mission in Syria as an adviser military “.
Iran says it deployed its forces in Syria at the invitation of Damascus, and only as advisers.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards are the ideological arm of the Iranian military and are labeled a terrorist group by Washington.
On several occasions, the international coalition led by the United States has admitted carrying out strikes in eastern Syria against pro-Iranian fighters. Israel also regularly carries out strikes there but rarely claims them.