US responds to Iranian drone attack in Syria – CENTCOM
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – The US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced on Thursday conducting a strike against facilities used by a group affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Syria in response to an Iranian drone attack on a US base.
General Michael Erik Kurilla, CENTCOM commander, said, “We responded to an attack on our forces that killed an American contractor and wounded our troops and another American contractor by striking facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.”
Kurilla added that the drone attack “was another in a series of attacks on our troops and partner forces.”
A US contractor was killed, and five other service members and another contractor were wounded when a suspected Iranian drone struck a facility on a base of the US-led Global Coalition in northeast Syria on Thursday.
He stressed that the CENTCOM will always take “all necessary measures to defend our people and will always respond at a time and place of our choosing. We are postured for scalable options in the face of any additional Iranian attacks.”
He went further saying that the US troops are deployed in Syria to “ensure the enduring defeat of ISIS, which benefits the security and stability of not only Syria, but the entire region.”
Overnight, videos on social media purported to show explosions in Syria’s Deir ez-Zor, a governorate borders Iraq and contains oil fields.
There was no immediate reaction from Iran over the strikes, which come during the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.