President Joe Biden warned Iran on Friday that attacks on US troops would be punished after militias launched a series of rocket and drone attacks on coalition bases in Syria.
“Make no mistake, the United States is not looking, I stress, not looking for a conflict with Iran,” Biden said at a press conference in Ottawa during a state visit to the Canadian capital. «But be prepared for us to act forcefully to protect our people.»
Separately, Biden told NBC News that the United States was «not going to stop» fighting the Islamic State group in the region.
His comments came after a US service member was wounded at a base near the Conoco Gas field in northeastern Syria by rocket fire, two US officials, one from Defense, told NBC News.
Less than an hour later, officials said three drones had attacked Green Village, a US facility in the area. Two were shot down and one damaged a building, but there were no injuries, authorities said. Earlier on Friday, a 10-rocket attack in Green Village caused no casualties or damage, they added.
The attacks came after the United States carried out retaliatory airstrikes following an attack that killed a US contractor when a suicide drone struck a coalition base near Hasakah in the country’s northeast. Five US service members and another contractor were injured.
Department of Defense spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder told a Pentagon news briefing on Friday that two US Air Force F-15E fighter jets had carried out the strikes in response to that attack and to “a series of recent attacks against Coalition Forces in Syria” by groups affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Party of Iran. Guard Corps.
The strikes, he said, «were intended to send a very clear message that we will take the protection of our staff seriously and that we will respond quickly and decisively if they are threatened.»
He added that the attacks had been authorized by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the direction of Biden.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based opposition war monitor that relies on local sources, reported that the US strikes had killed 11 fighters on the ground.
NBC News has not verified the report.
US forces entered Syria in 2015, supporting allied forces in their fight against the Islamic State terror group, and there are approximately 900 US troops, and even more contractors, in Syria.
ISIS lost its last key territory in Syria in 2019 after an offensive by fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces, a coalition of ethnic militias and rebel groups in Syria, and a US-led multinational coalition.
Although Iran opposes the militant group, the rise in violence marks an escalation in tensions between Tehran and Washington, which have clashed over the advancement of Iran’s nuclear program, anti-regime protests and its deliveries of drones to Russia.
Having tried and failed so far to revive a landmark 2015 nuclear deal abandoned by Trump, the Biden administration has been ratcheting up economic pressure on Iran and sending a signal that military force remains an option if all other means fail to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. .
Iran agreed to restore diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia in March after seven years of tensions. The truce, brokered by China, was widely seen as symbolic of waning US influence in the Middle East.
Peter Alexander contributed.