The US Department of Defense announced late Thursday that it ordered airstrikes against targets in eastern Syria after a drone struck a coalition base housing American forces, Sputnik news agency has reported.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin noted in a release issued by the Pentagon that the strikes were issued against facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran.
"As President [Joe] 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 said in a quote accompanying the release. "No group will strike our troops with impunity."
The Pentagon statement detailed a American contractor was killed and that five US soldiers and one additional contractor had sustained injuries after a "one-way unmanned aerial vehicle struck a maintenance facility on a Coalition base near Hasakah in northeast Syria."
The initial incident is said to have occurred at approximately 1:38 p.m. local time. It was later assessed by US intelligence officials that the drone was of an alleged "Iranian origin." Additional details on how officials came to that conclusion were not made available.
It was further noted that two of the injured soldiers were treated "on site" as the four others were "medically evacuated to Coalition medical facilities in Iraq."
According to the Press TV English website's report, local sources pointed out that the target was not an Iran-aligned military post as the US military claimed, but rather a rural development center and a grain center in Hrabash neighborhood, near Dayr al-Zawr military airport.
Meanwhile, no Iranian was killed in the act of aggression.
A military source in Syria told Press TV that the resistance groups reserve their right to respond to the American attack and will take reciprocal action.
MNA