Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said on Thursday (March 29) that the United States made a “baseless accusation” on groups in Syria after an attack last week on a coalition base that killed an American contractor.
Amirabdollahian said the claim that the groups were affiliated with Iran and that an Iranian drone was used were unfounded.
The Pentagon on March 23 said the U.S. military had carried out multiple air strikes in Syria against Iran-aligned groups that it blamed for the deadly drone attack, that also wounded another contractor and five U.S. troops. The attack against U.S. personnel took place at a coalition base near Hasakah in northeast Syria.
Amirabdollahian said although Iran was not looking for conflict, its “response to the American side was decisive and clear.”
Iran has previously said its forces and allied fighters are in Syria at the request of Damascus, and sees U.S. forces there as occupiers.
The death toll in U.S. air strikes on pro-Iran installations in eastern Syria has risen to 19 fighters, a Syrian war monitoring group said on Saturday (March 26).
The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said air raids killed three Syrian troops, 11 Syrian fighters in pro-government militias and five non-Syrian fighters who were aligned with the government.
The monitoring group’s head Rami Abdel Rahman could not specify the nationalities of the foreigners. Reuters was unable to independently confirm the toll.
