 The United States has struck facilities related to Iran's IRGC in Syria. The United States launched retaliatory airstrikes against Iranian-linked sites in eastern Syria after a suicide drone attack killed a U.S. contractor and wounded five troops and another contractor at a U.S. base there. The intelligence community assesses the UAV to be of Iranian origin. 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 Guard Corps, IRGC, said Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III. 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. These precision strikes are intended to protect and defend U.S. personnel. The United States took proportionate and deliberate action intended to limit the risk of escalation and minimize casualties. 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, said Secretary No group will strike our troops with impunity. 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, said the Secretary. Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which answers only to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been suspected of carrying out attacks with bomb-carrying drones across the wider Middle East.