In a press release launched late on Thursday, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin mentioned US Central Command forces retaliated with “precision airstrikes” towards amenities in jap Syria utilized by teams affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
The Defence Department mentioned the intelligence neighborhood had decided the unmanned aerial automobile was of Iranian origin.
“The airstrikes were conducted in response to today’s attack as well as a series of recent attacks against Coalition forces in Syria” by teams affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard, Austin mentioned.
Overnight, movies on social media purported to indicate explosions in Syria’s Deir Ez-Zor, a strategic province that borders Iraq and incorporates oil fields.
Iran-backed militia teams and Syrian forces management the world, which additionally has seen suspected airstrikes by Israel in latest months allegedly concentrating on Iranian provide routes.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which solutions solely to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been suspected of finishing up assaults with bomb-carrying drones throughout the broader Middle East.
In latest months, Russia has begun utilizing Iranian drones in its assaults on websites throughout Ukraine as a part of its conflict on Kyiv. Iran has denied being accountable for these assaults, although Western nations and specialists have tied elements within the drones again to Tehran.
US Army General Michael “Erik” Kurilla, the top of the American army’s Central Command, warned that American forces might perform further strikes if wanted.
“We are postured for scalable options in the face of any additional Iranian attacks,” Kurilla mentioned in a press release.
Syria’s state-run SANA news company didn’t instantly acknowledge any strikes. Syria’s mission to the United Nations didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
There was no speedy response from Iran over the strikes, which come throughout the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. Iran’s mission to the United Nations didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Qatar’s state-run news company reported a name between its overseas minister and Jake Sullivan, the US nationwide safety adviser.
Doha has been an interlocutor between Iran and the US lately amid tensions over Tehran’s nuclear program.
Qatar’s overseas minister additionally spoke across the identical time with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian.
Austin mentioned he authorised the retaliatory strikes on the route of President Joe Biden.
The US beneath Biden has struck Syria beforehand over tensions with Iran. In February and June of 2021, in addition to August 2022, Biden launched assaults there.
US forces entered Syria in 2015, backing allied forces of their battle towards the Islamic State group. The US nonetheless maintains the bottom close to Hasakah in northeast Syria the place Thursday’s drone strike occurred.
There are roughly 900 US troops, and much more contractors, in Syria, together with within the north and farther south and east.
“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,” Austin mentioned.
“No group will strike our troops with impunity.”
Syria’s conflict started with the 2011 Arab Spring protests that roiled the broader Middle East and toppled governments in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen.
It later morphed right into a regional proxy battle that has seen Russia and Iran again Assad.
The United Nations estimates over 300,000 civilians have been killed within the conflict. Those figures don’t embrace troopers and insurgents killed within the battle; their numbers are believed to be within the tens of hundreds.
The Pentagon mentioned two of the wounded service members had been handled on web site, whereas three others and the injured contractor had been transported to medical amenities in Iraq.
Source: www.9news.com.au
