A U.S. contractor was killed at a Syrian military outpost from a drone strike. Five service members were wounded in the attack.
At the time of the strike, one of the radars that detects “incoming threats at the military base in Hasakah was down for maintenance,” U.S. officials told NBC News.
How did the U.S. respond to the airstrike?
The drone is suspected to be an Iranian drone. In response to the attack, President Joe Biden sanctioned an airstrike “in eastern Syria against facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a statement, per CNN.
The U.S. airstrikes killed eight pro-Iran fighters, The New York Times reported.
“These precision strikes are intended to protect and defend U.S. personnel,” the statement said, per the Times. “The United States took proportionate and deliberate action intended to limit the risk of escalation and minimize casualties.”
There was another attack on Friday on a different U.S. military base in Syria, but there were no casualties in the “totally ineffective” attack, John Kirby, White House National Security Council spokesman, told NBC News.
In Syria currently, there are around 900 U.S. troops and “an unknown number of American military contractors,” USA Today reported.