US base in Syria attacked by Iranian proxy forces after retaliatory airstrikes

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U.S. launches counter-attack airstrike against Iranian-backed group

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Iran proxy forces launched about seven rockets targeting a U.S. base in Northeast Syria on Friday in retaliation to the U.S., a defense official confirms to Fox News. 

In first assessments, there are no U.S. casualties and no damage to the base near the Al-Omar oil field.

The rocket attacks came after President Biden ordered a series of retaliatory strikes in response to a suspected Iranian-made drone that killed a U.S. contractor and wounded six other Americans on Thursday. The U.S. strikes reportedly killed eight Iranians. 

The Department of Defense said Thursday that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps had crashed a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) into a building near Hasakah in northeast Syria at approximately 1:38 p.m. local time, leaving one U.S. contractor dead. The attack also wounded five U.S. service members and another U.S. contractor.

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This is a locator map for Syria with its capital, Damascus. (AP Photo)

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, two of the American strikes killed at least eight Iranian fighters. 

A U.S. airstrike at an arms depot in Harabesh, in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour, left six Iranian-backed fighters dead. A second U.S. bombing at a post near the town of Mayadeen killed another two fighters, according to the Observatory, whose reporting relies on local Syrian contacts.

U.S. intelligence assessed the UAV that crashed into a coalition base, which killed the U.S. contractor, was of Iranian origin — so President Biden authorized the military to retaliate, the Pentagon said.

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U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin delivers a statement to the press at the Israel Aerospace Industries headquarters near the Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, Israel, on March 9, 2023. (GIL COHEN-MAGEN/AFP via Getty Images)

"At the direction of President Biden, I authorized U.S. Central Command forces to conduct precision airstrikes tonight in eastern Syria against facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)," said Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. "The airstrikes were conducted in response to today’s attack as well as a series of recent attacks against Coalition forces in Syria by groups affiliated with the IRGC."

The Observatory reported another American strike on a military post near the town of Boukamal, near the border with Iraq. Their report has not been independently verified. 

Three service members and the U.S. contractor who were wounded in the initial attack were medically evacuated to Coalition medical facilities in Iraq, while the other two wounded service members were treated on-site.

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U.S. Joint Chiefs Chair Army General Mark Milley, left, speaks with U.S. forces in Syria during an unannounced visit at a U.S. military base in Northeast Syria on March 4, 2023. (REUTERS/Phil Stewart/File Photo)

"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 continued. "No group will strike our troops with impunity."

He added: "Our thoughts are with the family and colleagues of the contractor who was killed and with those who were wounded in the attack earlier today."

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The Pentagon said the U.S. took "proportionate and deliberate action" that limited the risk of escalation in its targeted response.

The U.S. has roughly 900 troops stationed in Syria.