Ottawa, March 25: President Joe Biden said on Friday that the US would respond “forcefully” to protect its personnel after US forces retaliated with airstrikes on sites in Syria used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard following a suspected Iranian-linked attack on Thursday that killed a US contractor and wounded seven other Americans in northeast Syria.
“The United States does not, does not seek conflict with Iran,” Biden said in Ottawa, Canada, where he is on a state visit. But he said Iran and its proxies should be prepared for the U.S. “to act forcefully to protect our people. That’s exactly what happened last night.”
Activists said the US bombing killed at least four people.
While it’s not the first time the US and Iran have traded strikes in Syria, the attacks and the US response threaten to upend recent efforts to de-escalate tensions across the wider Middle East, whose rival powers have made steps toward détente in recent days after years of turmoil.
The Pentagon said a drone attack on a US base on Thursday killed a contractor and injured five US troops and another contractor. That was followed by two simultaneous attacks on US forces in Syria on Friday, according to US officials.
The officials said that based on preliminary information, there was a rocket attack on Friday at a Conoco plant, and one US service member was injured but is in stable condition. At about the same time, several drones were launched at Green Village, where US troops are also based. One official said all but one of the drones were shot down, and there were no US injuries there. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations.
Two Syrian opposition activist groups reported a new wave of airstrikes on eastern Syria that hit positions of Iran-backed militias after rockets were fired at a Conoco gas plant that has a base housing American troops.
Several US officials, however, said the US did not launch any attacks late on Friday, and it wasn’t clear if the activists were referring to the attack on US forces at Green Village.
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said the American intelligence community had determined the drone in Thursday’s attack on was of Iranian origin.
US officials said that conclusion was based on recovered debris and intelligence threat streams. They offered no immediate evidence to support the claim. The drone hit a maintenance facility at a coalition base in the northeast Syrian city of Hasaka.
In retaliation, the Pentagon said F-15 fighter jets flying out of al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar struck several locations around Deir el-Zour. Those strikes, said Austin, 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 US 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.
Overnight, videos on social media purported to show explosions in Deir el-Zour, a strategic province that borders Iraq and contains oil fields. Iranian-backed militia groups and Syrian forces control the area, which also has seen suspected airstrikes by Israel in recent months allegedly targeting Iranian supply routes.
Reports on the number of killed and wounded in the US strikes varied. Activist group Deir Ezzor 24, which covers news in the province, said four people were killed and a number of others were wounded.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said 11 Iranian-backed fighters were killed – including six at an arms depot in the Harabesh neighborhood in the city of Deir el-Zour and five at military posts near the towns of Mayadeen and Boukamal.
The exchange of strikes came as Saudi Arabia and Iran have been working toward reopening embassies in each other’s countries. The kingdom also acknowledged efforts to reopen a Saudi embassy in Syria, whose embattled President Bashar Assad has been backed by Iran in his country’s long war. (AP)
