(Washington) US forces carried out “precision airstrikes” in eastern Syria after a drone attack that killed an American and injured six others, the Pentagon announced Thursday evening.
The drone attack took place around 1:38 p.m. (6:38 a.m. Eastern Time) on Thursday against a maintenance facility at a base near Hasakah in northeastern Syria, the Pentagon said in a statement. a statement.
US intelligence services consider the drone to be “of Iranian origin”, the Pentagon added.
The dead person 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, quoted in the statement.
“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 Islamic State (IS) group. 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.