Washington, United States:
The US military struck facilities in eastern Syria applied by Iran-backed armed groups Thursday, saying President Joe Biden’s new administration was sending Tehran a message immediately after current rocket attacks on US troop places in Iraq.
In its initially military action against Iran-linked groups because Biden became president 5 weeks ago, the US Defense Department mentioned it had carried out airstrikes at a Syria-Iraq border handle point applied by these groups, destroying “multiple facilities.”
“At President Biden’s direction, US military forces earlier this evening conducted airstrikes against infrastructure utilized by Iranian-backed militant groups in eastern Syria,” mentioned spokesman John Kirby in a statement.
“These strikes were authorized in response to recent attacks against American and Coalition personnel in Iraq, and to ongoing threats to those personnel,” he mentioned.
Kirby did not say whether or not there had been any casualties in Thursday’s attack.
But the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights mentioned that 17 persons had been killed immediately after the strike hit 3 trucks loaded with munitions coming from Iraq close to the Syrian city of Bukamal.
The group mentioned all the dead had been from Iraq’s state-sponsored Hashed al-Shaabi force, the umbrella group more than lots of compact militias that have ties to Iran.
Kirby mentioned the place was applied by Kataeb Hezbollah and Kataeb Sayyid al-Shuhada, two armed Iraqi Shiite groups beneath Hashed al-Shaabi.
Reprisal for rocket attacks
The US action followed 3 rocket attacks on facilities in Iraq applied by United States and coalition forces fighting the Islamic State group.
One of these strikes, on a military complicated in the Kurdish region’s capital Arbil on February 15, killed a civilian and a foreign contractor working with coalition forces, and injured quite a few US contractors and a soldier.
The attacks in Iraq laid down a challenge to the new Biden administration just as it opened a door to resumed negotiations with Tehran more than its alleged nuclear weapons system.
Last week, the administration presented talks with Iran led by European allies as it sought to salvage the 2015 nuclear deal, left on the brink of collapse immediately after the preceding government of President Donald Trump withdrew from it.
But the administration has also produced clear it would not brook “malign activities” in the area by Iran.
Although Kataeb Hezbollah did not claim duty for the attacks, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin mentioned that the strong pro-Iranian organization was behind them.
“We’re confident in the target we went after. We know what we hit,” he told reporters on the plane flying to Washington immediately after a tour of the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier off the California coast.
“We are confident that the target was being used by the same Shia militia that conducted the strikes” against American interests in Iraq, he mentioned.
Iran is believed to be looking for an chance to avenge the US assassination of leading basic Qasem Soleimani one year ago.
Soleimani, a senior officer in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, was Tehran’s important liaison to allied groups and figures in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere in the area.
He was killed in a US drone strike just as he arrived in Baghdad for meetings with leading Iraqi officials.
State Department spokesman Ned Price mentioned Monday the US would “hold Iran responsible for the actions of its proxies that attack Americans” but would not “lash out” and danger destabilizing Iraq.
Kirby known as Thursday’s strikes “proportionate” and mentioned it “was conducted together with diplomatic measures,” such as consultation with US partners in the anti-IS coalition.
“The operation sends an unambiguous message: President Biden will act to protect American and Coalition personnel,” he mentioned.
“At the same time, we have acted in a deliberate manner that aims to de-escalate the overall situation in both eastern Syria and Iraq,” he added.
(This story has not been edited by TheSpuzz employees and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)