The US military said it carried out air strikes on Tuesday in Syria’s Deir al-Zor against facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
The strikes came even as the United States aimed to respond to a draft agreement proposed by the European Union that would bring back the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.
The military’s Central Command said in a statement that such strikes were aimed at protecting US forces from attack by Iran-backed groups.
It cited one such incident on August 15, which Reuters has reported involved drone attack on a compound run by coalition and US-backed Syrian opposition fighters, with no casualties.
“The president gave the direction for these strikes,” said spokesman Army Colonel Joe Buccino.
Central Command called the strikes a “proportionate, deliberate action intended to limit the risk of escalation and minimize the risk of casualties.”
The statement about Tuesday’s US strike did not mention whether there were any casualties and did not say whether the air strikes were carried out by manned or unmanned aircraft.