US contractor killed and five service members injured in Iranian drone strike in Syria

A US contractor has been killed and five US service members injured in an Iranian drone strike in northeast Syria – prompting President Joe Biden to authorise retaliatory “precision airstrikes’ against Iran-aligned groups.

The drone struck a facility on a coalition base housing US personnel in northeast Syria on Thursday, the Pentagon announced in a statement late on Thursday night.

One contractor – an American citizen – died in the strike while five US service members and an additional US contractor were also wounded.

The Pentagon said that the intelligence community had determined the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) “to be of Iranian origin”.

In response to the strike, Mr Biden gave the green light for the Pentagon to launch a series of airstrikes on facilities in eastern Syria used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

These strikes killed six Iranian-backed fighters at an arms depot in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour and two other fighters near the town of Mayadeen, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Another strike on a military post near the border with Iraq had no reported fatalities, the onformation group said.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the US had taken “proportionate and deliberate action intended to limit the risk of escalation and minimise casualties”.

“At the direction of President Biden, I authorised US 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),” he said.

“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.

“Our thoughts are with the family and colleagues of the contractor who was killed and with those who were wounded in the attack earlier today.”

The DOD chief added: “As President Biden has made clear, we will take all necessary measures to defend our people and will always respond at a time and place of our choosing.

“No group will strike our troops with impunity.”

Commander of US Central Command General Erik Kurilla warned that the US is ready to respond with additional strikes if there are more attacks on American troops.

“We are postured for scalable options in the face of any additional Iranian attacks,” he said.

Three of the wounded service members and the wounded contractor were taken to medical facilities in Iraq while the two other service members received treatment on-site.