A suspected Iranian-made drone strike killed a U.S. contractor and wounded five American troops and another contractor in northeast Syria, according to the Pentagon. The US retaliated with precision airstrikes targeting facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Iran depends on a network of proxy forces throughout the Middle East to counter the US and Israel. The attack and the US response could upend recent efforts to deescalate tensions across the wider Middle East. Qatar’s state-run news agency reported a phone call between its foreign minister and Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, as diplomacy began to deescalate the crisis.