White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said US actions in Syria were aimed at protecting US forces there, referring to US strikes on Iranian-backed military groups overnight.

Kirby added, in a television interview, that Iran should not participate in supporting attacks on US facilities, stressing that the United States does not seek a conflict with Iran.

Kirby also noted that there were no U.S. troop casualties in Friday morning's attack on a U.S. base in eastern Syria, describing the attack as an initial reaction to Washington's strikes on Iran-allied groups in the region.

Kirby told MSNBC: "It's not strange that when we strike in retaliation like this they respond immediately by firing missiles that don't hit their targets. No one was injured and there were no American casualties at all."

The Pentagon announced late Thursday that a US soldier was killed, and 5 US service members were wounded, in addition to another American contractor, after a drone targeted a maintenance facility on Thursday evening at a coalition base near Hasakah, northeastern Syria.

In response, the US military carried out air strikes, which it described as precise, in eastern Syria that killed 11 pro-Iranian fighters, according to Syrian human rights sources.

The US strikes, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Friday, affected several sites in eastern Syria, most notably a weapons depot of pro-Iranian groups inside the city of Deir Ezzor, which led to its complete destruction and the death of 6 of its members, and the shelling targeted sites in the desert of the city of Al-Mayadeen and the countryside of Al-Bukamal, killing 5 fighters loyal to Tehran.

In response to the US airstrikes, pro-Iran groups fired several rockets on Friday morning, "two of which landed in the campus of the Omar field, without damage, while the third landed on a civilian house near the field, which houses a base for US forces leading the international coalition against the Islamic State," the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, told AFP.

Tensions in Syria between the United States and Iran-backed military groups have risen to a record high in the past 24 hours.

Three exchanges of shelling were recorded between the two sides, in which both sides used drones, rockets and mortars.

Iran-backed groups, according to US officials, have carried out about 78 attacks on coalition forces in Syria since 2021, and the means of attack varied between drones bombs to rockets and mortars.

Syrian sources estimate the presence of about 15,<> fighters from Iraqi, Afghan and Pakistani groups loyal to Iran in the oil-rich province of Deir Ezzor, specifically in the area between the border cities of Albu Kamal and Deir Ezzor through Al-Mayadeen.

The bases and centers where US forces are present are scattered in southeastern Syria, where the al-Tanf base was established, as well as to the northeast of this country, specifically near Hasaka and Deir Ezzor, where oil-rich areas are located.

U.S. estimates say there are between 900,55 and <>,<> U.S. troops in a strip of about <> kilometers.