US Praises Its Strategic Ties with Saudi Arabia

On Sunday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that Saudi Arabia is "a strategic partner in the region.”

“My focus is to defend this country and protect our interest,” Austin told ABC's "This Week" program.

"Saudi is from my perspective a strategic partner in the region. And certainly, we have security commitments in that area.”

“It’s necessary to work together to make sure that we achieve our goals and objectives,” he added.

Austin said relations with Saudi Arabia will remain good, but it will be a bit different.

Asked if Iran had been given a message that US retaliation would not constitute an escalation, Austin said that Iran is fully capable of assessing the strike and US activities.

“What they should draw from this, again, is that we’re going to defend our troops and our response will be thoughtful. It will be appropriate,” Austin said. “We would hope that they would choose to do the right things.”

"There were no reports of injuries among US service personnel after the attack but an American civilian contractor died after suffering a “cardiac episode” while sheltering from the rockets," the Pentagon said.

Iraqi officials said 10 rockets landed at the base but the Pentagon was more guarded, saying there were 10 “impacts.” It said the rockets appeared to have been fired from multiple sites east of the base, which also was targeted last year by a ballistic missile attack directly from Iran.

US forces carried out airstrikes against facilities at a border control point in Syria used by Iranian-backed militias including Kata’ib Hezbollah and Kata’ib Sayyid Al-Shuhada in February.