How US launched deadly strikes on Iran-backed forces who killed American in Syria

The United States has traded strikes with Iranian-backed forces in Syria after an American contractor was killed by a drone attack.

An Iranian-made ‘kamikaze’ drone hit a coalition site in Hasaka at about 1.38pm local time on Thursday, killing the American contractor and injuring five troops and another contractor.

Three service members and a contractor required medical evacuation to Iraq, while two wounded American troops were treated at the base. On Friday, the Pentagon said the injured personnel were in stable condition.

President Joe Biden ordered retaliatory ‘precision airstrikes’ against targets in eastern Syria linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is designated a terrorist organization by the US.

Fourteen pro-Iran fighters were killed when two US Air Force F-15E fighter jets launched airstrikes on three targets, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights

An Iranian-made drone struck a coalition base in northeastern Syria at about 1.38pm local time on Thursday, killing an American contractor and injuring several more US personnel. President Joe Biden ordered a series of retaliatory strikes against Iranian-linked bases in the country

America’s retaliatory strikes were carried out by two F-15E fighter jets and killed 14 fighters

Six were killed at a weapons depot inside Deir Ezzor city, two near Al-Mayadeen, and six others near Albu Kamal, according to the the British-based, which gathers information from a network of sources on the ground.

Military officials said the jets attacked a munitions warehouse, a control building and an intelligence-gathering facility.

Iranian-backed forces responded again on Friday morning, when fighters stationed near the city of Al-Mayadeen fired at least three missiles near a US base in Syria’s largest oil field, Al-Omar.

Two reached the oil field but didn’t cause any damage, while a third fell short of the base by about three miles and struck a civilian house ‘causing significant damage and minor injuries to two women and two children’.

A spokesperson for the US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) said there were ’10 rockets fired… at approximately 8:05 am’.

While it’s not the first time the US and Iran have traded strikes in Syria, the attack and the US response threaten to upend recent efforts to deescalate tensions across the wider Middle East, whose rival powers have made steps toward détente in recent days after years of turmoil. 

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the American intelligence community had determined the drone was of Iranian origin, but offered no other immediate evidence to support the claim.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III said he authorized the retaliatory strikes at the direction of President Joe Biden. US Air Force F-15E fighter jets struck a munition warehouse, a control building and an intelligence-collection site

Videos posted online overnight purported to show the blasts caused by the American strikes 

The drone hit a coalition base in the northeast Syrian city of Hasaka. The wounded included five American service members and a U.S. contractor.

Austin said the strikes were a response to the drone attack ‘as well as a series of recent attacks against coalition forces in Syria’ by groups affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard.

Iran relies on a network of proxy forces through the Mideast to counter the U.S. and Israel, its arch regional enemy.

The US has had forces in northeast Syria since 2015, when they deployed as part of the fight against the Islamic State group, and maintains some 900 troops there, working with Kurdish-led forces that control around a third of Syria.