World News | Despite deadly attack, US won’t abandon Syria mission

washington [Us]March 28 (ANI): The United States will not abandon its nearly eight-year-old deployment in Syria, where it is battling remnants of the Islamic State, despite attacks by Iran-backed militias on U.S. forces there last week. The White House said on Monday, according to Voice of America (VOA).

On March 23, a one-way attack drone struck a U.S. base in Syria, killing a U.S. contractor, wounding another and wounding five U.S. troops.

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That sparked retaliatory U.S. airstrikes and firefights, which a Syrian war monitoring group said killed three Syrian troops, 11 Syrian fighters from pro-government militias and five non-Syrian fighters allied to the government, according to VOA .

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said he had not seen any other attacks in the past 36 hours, but warned, “We will remain vigilant.”

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Kirby also referred to President Joe Biden’s speech on Friday, in which he warned Iran that the United States would take strong action to protect Americans, VOA reported.

“As a result of what has happened over the past few days, the U.S. footprint in Syria has not changed,” Kirby said, adding that the mission to fight ISIS will continue.

“We will not be intimidated by these attacks by these militant groups.”

Syria’s foreign ministry condemned the U.S. airstrike on Sunday, saying Washington lied about its targets and promised to “end the U.S. occupation of its territory,” VOA reported.

Iran’s foreign ministry also condemned the strike, accusing the US military of targeting “civilian sites”.

During the Obama administration’s campaign against the Islamic State, U.S. troops deployed to Syria for the first time, working with a Kurdish-led group called the Syrian Democratic Forces. There are about 900 U.S. troops in Syria, most of them in the east.

According to the Voice of America report, the US military stated that since the beginning of 2021, before the latest series of attacks, the US military stationed in Syria has been attacked by Iran-backed groups about 78 times.

Iran has been a key backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during Syria’s 12-year conflict.

Iran’s proxy militias, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah group and pro-Tehran Iraqi groups, dominate swaths of Syria’s east, south and north, as well as the suburbs around the capital Damascus. (Arnie)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)