Iranian backed forces fire rockets at US base in Syria

The United States had launched retaliatory strikes against Iranian backed forces for killing a US contractor and wounding other Americans. American military service members were among those wounded. Eight of the Iranian backed fighters have reportedly been killed by two of the strikes. Iranian backed forces retaliated by firing rockets at a US base in northern Syria. Initial assessments indicate that there are no casualties or damage in this later attack.

From Fox News:

The Department of Defense said Thursday that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps had crashed a UAV into a building near Hasakah in northeast Syria at approximately 1:38 p.m. local time, leaving one U.S. contractor dead. The attack also wounded five U.S. service members and another U.S. contractor.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, two of the American strikes killed at least eight Iranian fighters.

A U.S. airstrike at an arms depot in Harabesh, in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour left six Iranian-backed fighters dead. A second U.S. bombing at a post near the town of Mayadeen killed another two fighters, according to the Observatory, whose reporting relies on local Syrian contacts.

U.S. intelligence assessed the UAV that crashed into a coalition base, which killed the U.S. contractor, was of Iranian origin — so President Biden authorized the military to retaliate, the Pentagon said.

“At the direction of President Biden, I authorized U.S. Central Command forces to conduct precision airstrikes tonight in eastern Syria against facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC),” said Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III. “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 IRGC.”

The Observatory reported another American strike on a military post near the town of Boukamal, near the border with Iraq. Their report has not been independently verified.

Three service members and the U.S. contractor who were wounded in the initial attack were medically evacuated to Coalition medical facilities in Iraq while the other two wounded service members were treated on-site.

Fox News has the rest of the story.

Category: Iran, Military issues, Syria