US strikes in response to drone attack kill at least 39 in Iraq and Syria as Iran fumes
U.S. airstrikes on Iraq and Syria overnight Friday killed at least 39 people and injured several dozen others, hitting more than 85 targets linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and related militias in the first of a series of retaliatory moves following last weekend’s drone strike in Jordan that killed three US Army soldiers and injured dozens more.
The successful strikes left Tehran fuming about “violations of the sovereignty and territorial integrity,” and drew condemnation from Iraq and Syria.
The move also represented a significant escalation of the conflict in the Middle East related to Israel’s nearly four-months of war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
An initial battle damage assessment found the U.S. hit each of its planned targets, along with a few “dynamic targets” that popped up as the mission unfolded, including a surface-to-air missile site and drone launch sites, a U.S. official said Saturday.
“The facilities that were struck included command and control operations, centers, intelligence centers, rockets, and missiles, and unmanned aired vehicle storages, and logistics and munition supply chain facilities of militia groups and their IRGC sponsors who facilitated attacks against U.S. and Coalition forces,” U.S. Central Command said in a statement.
“This is the start of our response,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a separate statement.
“The president has directed additional actions to hold the IRGC and affiliated militias accountable for their attacks on U.S. and Coalition Forces,” Austin said. “We will take all necessary actions to defend the United States, our forces, and our interests.”
The U.S. is also moving on the diplomatic front, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken headed to the region for another round of talks aimed at securing a ceasefire.
His fifth trip to the Middle East since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel will take him to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Israel and the West Bank.
Reports said the secretary of state will be proposing a “grand bargain” deal involving normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel and “substantial movement” toward the recognition of a Palestinian state, along with other diplomatic and economic offerings from Washington.
But Syria’s foreign ministry said the strikes will worsen the situation in the region. “What [the US] committed has served to fuel conflict in the Middle East in a very dangerous way,” the ministry said in a statement.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani went further, calling the strikes “another adventurous and strategic mistake by the United States that will result only in increased tension in instability in the region.”
Friday’s strikes were meant “to overshadow the Zionist regime’s crimes in Gaza,” Kanaani insisted. The “root cause of tensions and crises in the Middle East is Israel’s occupation and genocide of Palestinians with America’s unlimited support,” he added.
Kanaani also urged the UN Security Council to prevent further “illegal and unilateral U.S. attacks in the region.” He did not say whether Iran would respond to the escalation.
Before the U.S. retaliation, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said Iran would not start a war, but would “respond strongly to anyone who tries to bully it.”
Hamas also condemned US “aggression” against Iraq and Syria, describing it as a “dangerous escalation” and “an encroachment on the sovereignty of the two countries.”
Some of the main Iran-backed militias in Iraq have vowed to continue fighting, ostensibly in support of Gaza, but one, known as Kataib Hezbollah, has said it would suspend attacks on American troops to avoid “embarrassing” the Iraqi government.
Another Iraqi militia official on Saturday hinted at possible deescalation, while notably downplaying the US strikes.
The US “must understand that every action elicits a reaction” said Hussein al-Mosawi, a spokesman for Harakat al-Nujaba, one of the main Iranian-backed militias in Iraq. But, he added, “we do not wish to escalate or widen regional tensions.”
The targeted sites in Iraq were mostly “devoid of fighters and military personnel at the time of the attack,” al-Mosawi said – suggesting that there may not have been enough damage to justify a strong response.
The U.S. has not issue a casualty assessment, but an Iraqi government spokesperson, Bassim al-Awadi, said Saturday that the strikes in Iraq near the Syrian border killed 16 people, including civilians.
There was also “significant damage” to home and private properties, he added.
Some of the U.S. strikes in Iraq targeted facilities of the Population Mobilization Forces, a coalition of Iran-backed militias, the spokesperson explained. The group’s official security headquarters were among the sites hit.
The coalition said in a statement that along with those killed, 36 people were wounded “while the search is still ongoing for the bodies of a number of the missing.”
The Post’s latest coverage on the US soldiers killed in a Jordan drone strike
- US launches retaliatory strikes in Syria, Iraq after soldier deaths: Pentagon
- Biden meets at Dover with families of troops killed in Jordan attack
- Umbrella group Islamic Resistance in Iraq responsible for strike that killed 3 troops in Jordan: US
- Two female US soldiers killed in Jordan drone attack were best friends, shattered kin say as they recall final phone calls
- Iran threatens to ‘decisively respond’ to any US strikes as Biden weighs retaliation for Jordan attack
- 3 US service members killed, at least 34 injured in drone attack in Jordan by ‘radical Iran-backed militant groups’
About 23 rank-and-file fighters were killed in the Syrian strikes, according to Rami Abdurrahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Syrian state media has not given a total number of casualties.
Syria’s defense ministry, which blasted the strikes as “blatant air aggression” claimed significant damage to public and private property, including the Al-Abba fortress, a historic site in the eastern Deir ez-Zor province that dates to the minth century.
Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudan’s office condemned the strikes as a “new aggression against Iraq’s sovereignty” in a statement and called any claims that the Baghdad government coordinated with Washington officials prior to the attacks “lies.”
Iraq’s foreign ministry said that it would deliver a formal protest over the strikes to the US embassy’s chargé d’affaires. The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Alina Romanowski, is not in the country.
Iraq, in particular, has been in a precarious position since a group of Iranian-backed militias known as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq started launching attacks on US bases in Iraq and Syria on Oct. 18, claiming the strikes are retaliations for the US’ support of Israel in the war against Hamas.
Iraqi officials have quietly tried to rein in the militias, while also condemning the US’ retaliation and calling for the exit of the 2,500 US troops that remain in the country.
Separately, Russia condemned the US airstrikes, and called for the UN Security Council to investigate.
“It is obvious that the airstrikes are deliberately designed to further inflame the conflict,” Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said. “By attacking, almost without pause, the facilities of allegedly pro-Iranian groups in Iraq and Syria, the US are purposefully trying to drive the largest countries in the region into conflict.”
In response to Russian demands, the Security Council said it will hold an emergency meeting on the strikes on Monday.
Former NATO Ambassador Kurt Volker said the Biden sent a message to Iran by not directly targeting it.
“I suspect that what the administration is trying to do by not hitting Iran, is to send a signal to Iran,” Volker said in an interview with NewsNation. “‘Don’t hit us on our homeland, particularly during an election year.’”
“I think they are trying to say… ‘You hit our guys overseas, we will hit your proxies overseas. Shut this down, don’t do it anymore,’” the former ambassador added.
With Post wires
