The United States stated today that they will protect their staff at Syria after drone attack which resulted in the death of an American contractor and the wounding of five US soldiers. In retaliation, the US armed forces launched airstrikes targeting members of armed organizations close to Iran, and shortly after, a second attack on an American base took place.

A day after a deadly attack on US personnel in Syria, which Washington blamed on an Iranian-made drone, sources said a US base in northeastern Syria was targeted by a new missile attack. US officials said there were no US casualties in today’s incident.

“We will work to protect our people and our facilities as best we can. It’s a dangerous environment,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby told CNN.

Although US forces in Syria have been targeted by drones before, casualties are rare.

The Pentagon said the US F-15 strikes targeted facilities used by groups linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an organization that tracks developments in the war in Syria, said the US strikes killed eight pro-Iranian fighters in Syria.

Reuters is unable to independently confirm the account.

Iran’s state network Press TV, which said no Iranians were killed in the attack, cited local sources who denied targeting an Iranian-linked military outpost, saying a rural development center and a grain center near a military airport had been hit. .

“We will always take all necessary measures to protect our people, and we will always respond at a time and place of our choosing,” General Eric Kurila, who oversees US forces in the Middle East, said in a statement.

The US strikes were in response to a drone strike earlier Thursday targeting US personnel at a coalition base near Hasakah in northeastern Syria.

Three U.S. service members and a contractor had to be flown to Iraq, where the U.S.-led coalition fighting the remnants of Islamic State has medical facilities, the Pentagon said.

The other two wounded US servicemen are being treated at the base, it said.

Today the Pentagon stated that the injured are in stable condition.

A US base at the Al-Omar oil field in Syria was targeted by a missile attack this morning, according to Iran’s Al Mayadeen TV network and a security source.

Kirby said the attack failed and there were no US casualties.

It is not unusual for Iranian-backed groups to fire missiles at US bases in Syria after being targeted by airstrikes.

US forces were first deployed to Syria during President Barack Obama’s campaign against Islamic State, in cooperation with a Kurdish-led group, the Syrian Democratic Forces. About 900 US troops are stationed in Syria, most of them in its eastern part.

US troops have been attacked by Iran-backed groups about 78 times since the beginning of 2021, according to the US military.

The U.S. military build-up, which former President Donald Trump nearly ended in 2018 before abandoning plans for a full withdrawal, is a holdover from the broader global war on terror that included the war in Afghanistan and a much larger military build-up by USA in Iraq.

While Islamic State has lost the territory in Syria and Iraq it controlled in 2014, sleeper cells continue to carry out attacks in areas where neither the US-led coalition nor the Syrian army has full control.