The Pentagon has commenced retaliation strikes in response to a drone attack that killed three US troops at a secretive base in Jordan, targeting dozens of sites in Iraq and Syria linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) Quds Force and affiliated militia groups.
“Our response began today” and “will continue at times and places of our choosing,” US President Joe Biden announced on Friday night. The airstrikes started around midnight on Saturday local time and hit more than 85 Iranian-linked targets, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement.
The bombings come nearly one week after a drone packed with explosives struck Tower 22, a US base in Jordan located near the Syrian and Iraqi borders, killing three soldiers and wounding more than 40 others. The attack, which the US blamed on the Iranian-backed Islamic Resistance in Iraq, marked the first deaths of American troops in a wave of assaults triggered by the Israel-Hamas war.
05 February 2024
This live stream has ended.
British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps has told the House of Commons that joint UK and US strikes on the Houthis in Yemen have had a “significant effect” in degrading the group’s abilities to disrupt Red Sea shipping routes. However, he added that the threat posed by the group “has not been fully diminished.”
The Houthis, who have been targeting vessels navigating the waterway in protest at Israel’s offensive against Palestinians in Gaza, “believe they are the region’s Robin Hood,” Shapps claimed. “The only people they are robbing are innocent Yemenis, whose food and aid arrives via the Red Sea,” he added.
Shapps also insisted that the most recent strikes in Yemen on Saturday were “very carefully planned” so that “minimal” civilian casualties might occur, and that the UK will not hesitate to launch further military action if required.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in Saudi Arabia amid a backdrop of increased regional tensions and expanded attacks between Washington and various militia groups.
The United States’ top diplomat wants to emphasize that the Biden administration is pursuing a deescalation of confrontations against Tehran-aligned militias, a State Department official told reporters. The US has in recent days targeted militant groups in both Syria and Iraq.
“The United States does not want to see the conflict escalated” and will not seek to “escalate the conflict,” the official said, according to the Washington Post.
The US airstrikes in Syria, Iraq and Yemen are just “a clumsy attempt to divert public attention from the focal point of the crisis” in the Middle East, which is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani has said.
“The epicenter of the crisis is still in Palestine, and the solution is to end the genocide,” Kanaani stressed. But instead of working towards peace, Washington is “willing to give the [Israeli] regime free rein to continue crimes,” he added.
Such actions by the Americans are “inconsistent with their claims on non-expansion of the [Gaza] war in the region,” the spokesman insisted.
Australia, which is a member of the US-led coalition in the Red Sea, considers the American airstrikes in Syria, Iraq and Yemen to be an appropriate response that will not exacerbate tensions in the region, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said.
“We support the actions of the US. These are proportionate, these are retaliatory [steps] for the actions of Iran-backed organizations and they are not an escalation. So, we think that the US has got it right,” Albanese said in an interview with ABC.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin has commented on the US strikes in Syria and Iraq over the weekend, saying that Beijing “opposes any act that violates the UN Charter and infringes upon other countries’ territorial sovereignty and security.”
China urges all the parties involved “to earnestly observe the international law, remain calm, exercise restraint and prevent the tensions in the region from escalating or even spiraling out of control,” he stressed.
Six US-backed Kurdish fighters have been killed in a drone strike on a base housing American troops in Syria, Al Arabiya has reported, citing the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
According to the SDF, UAVs targeted a training ground at al-Omar base in the eastern province of Deir ez-Zor, which borders Iraq, late on Sunday. The Kurds blamed the attack on “Syrian regime-backed mercenaries.” No US servicemen were harmed in the incident, Al Arabiya said.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq has claimed responsibility for the attack, which it said had been aimed “against the US occupation base in the al-Omar oil field.” The group also published footage on social media showing what it claimed was the launch of drones toward the base.
A member of the Houthi political bureau, Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, has said the fact that only two countries – the US and UK – have so far been actually carrying out strikes on Yemen is a sign of differences among members of the American-led coalition in the Red Sea.
Bukhaiti described the attacks that have taken place so far as “ineffectual” and warned that “the spillover of the [conflict in Gaza] will inevitably result in an end to US hegemony across the region,” PRESS TV has reported.
The Houthi foreign ministry has condemned the latest US and UK strikes on Yemen, saying that the continuing “aggression” by Washington and London points to the UN Security Council’s failure to take on its responsibilities.
The attacks by the Americans and the British are intended to distract the public from Israeli “defeats as they perpetrate atrocities against ordinary people and civilians in Gaza,” it said.
”These assaults won’t ever make the Republic of Yemen do a volte-face on its humanitarian and ethical duties concerning Palestinians and their cause,” the ministry stressed.
The US and UK will not achieve their goals by striking Yemen, but will only “increase their issues and problems at the regional level,” Houthi spokesman Mohammad Abdul Salam has said in a statement on X (formerly Twitter).
The strikes will not affect the group’s decision to support the Palestinians in Gaza while Israel continues its attacks, he insisted. Abdul Salam also said that Houthi military capabilities “are not easy to destroy and have been rebuilt during years of harsh war.”
Instead of further escalating tensions, Washington and London should instead “submit to international public opinion, which demands an immediate halt to the Israeli aggression, lift the siege on Gaza and stop protecting Israel at the expense of the Palestinian people,” the spokesman stressed.
The Houthis could sabotage a network of submarine cables in the Red Sea, estimated to carry 17% of global internet traffic, the Guardian has reported, citing telecom firms linked to Yemen’s UN-recognized government.
The warning came after a Houthi-linked Telegram channel recently posted a map of cables running along the bottom of the Red Sea. “There are maps of international cables connecting all regions of the world through the sea. It seems that Yemen is in a strategic location, as internet lines that connect entire continents – not only countries – pass near it,” the caption to the image read.
The information minister in Yemen’s Aden-based government, Moammar al-Eryani, also told the paper that the Houthis posed a serious threat to “one of the most important digital infrastructures in the world.”
Tehran has warned Washington and London against testing the “wrath of the region,” adding that Iran strongly condemns their “military attacks on Yemen and the US aggression on Iraq and Syria,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a phone conversation with UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron, in which the diplomats discussed the ongoing “international action to hold the Houthis accountable for their illegal and reckless attacks on vessels,” situation in the Red Sea following the latest joint airstrikes in Yemen, the State Department said in a statement on Sunday night.
British PM Rishi Sunak has defended the latest wave of airstrikes in Yemen over the weekend, calling it a “proportionate” act of “self-defense” against the Houthi rebels.
“Since the last set of strikes, we have seen the Houthis continue to attack shipping in the Red Sea,” he told reporters on Sunday. “That is obviously unacceptable, it is illegal. It puts innocent people’s lives at risk and it has economic consequences.”
“I have been clear that I won’t hesitate to protect British lives, British interests and our diplomatic efforts are focused on bringing de-escalation and stability back to the region,” he added.
The Pentagon has unveiled additional details of its “self-defense” strikes in Yemen over the course of Sunday, claiming to have hit at least one land attack missile and four anti-ship cruise missiles.
”US forces identified the missiles in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and determined they presented an imminent threat to US Navy ships and merchant vessels in the region,” CENTCOM said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
The US-led coalition allegedly launched several new strikes on Sunday evening targeting the Yemeni cities of Hodeidah and Saada, according to Houthi-affiliated media outlet Al Masirah TV. The US authorities have yet to confirm the raids, but previously said that airstrikes on Syria, Iraq and Yemen over the weekend were only the “first round” of Washington’s military response.
The US Central Command has published a video of multiple missile launches from American warships deployed in the Red Sea against alleged Houthi targets in Yemen, although the date of that particular strike remains unclear.
04 February 2024
The US airstrikes in Syria and Iraq on Friday allegedly “destroyed or functionally damaged” 84 out of 85 intended targets, but there was “no indications” that members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were killed, CNN has reported, citing two unnamed US defense officials.
President Joe Biden has officially informed Congress of US strikes in Iraq and Syria, claiming he”directed this military action consistent with my responsibility to protect United States citizens both at home and abroad and in furtherance of United States national security and foreign policy interests.”
“In response to the continuation of attacks against United States forces since my prior report, at my direction, United States forces have conducted discrete strikes against facilities in Syria and Iraq used by the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) and affiliated militia groups for headquarters and command and control, weapons storage, training, logistics support, and other purposes,” Biden wrote in a letter published by the White House on Sunday.
“If necessary, I will direct additional measures, including against the IRGC and IRGC-affiliated personnel and facilities, as appropriate, to address the series of attacks against United States forces and facilities,” he added.
Asked whether Washington has ruled out strikes inside Iran, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan dodged the question in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
“Well, sitting here today on a national news program, I’m not going to get into what we’ve ruled in and ruled out from the point of view of military action,” he told moderator Kristen Welke, adding “it would not be wise for me to talk about what we’re ruling in and ruling out.”
“I’m not going to get into what’s on the table and off the table when it comes to the American response,” he reiterated when pressed on the issue once again.
The US would strike Iran with a “swift and forceful response” if the Islamic Republic “chose to respond directly to the United States,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan told ABC, hinting that the US was not finished responding to last week’s drone attack that killed three American soldiers at a base in Jordan.
“We intend to take additional strikes and additional action to continue to send a clear message that the United States will respond when our forces are attacked, or people are killed,” he told NBC. Meanwhile, he told CBS, military commanders had been warned to be “positioned to respond to further attacks.”
Sullivan defended the Biden administration’s decision to strike Yemen without congressional approval, claiming the attacks “had good effect in reducing and degrading the capabilities of the militias and the Houthis” and vowing to “continue to take action” where needed. He dismissed Iraqi reports of civilian casualties, insisting the US had only struck “valid military targets.”
US airstrikes on Syria, Iraq and Yemen over the last two days were only the “first round” of Washington’s military response to last week’s drone attack on a US base in Jordan, White House national security spokesman John Kirby told NBC.
“We intend to take additional strikes and additional action to continue to send a clear message that the United States will respond when our forces are attacked or people are killed,” he said.
Kirby promised “more steps - some seen, some perhaps unseen” in comments to CBS, while stressing that he would not describe the planned US actions in the region as “some open-ended military campaign.”
Further aggression from the US and UK will not sway Yemen’s Houthis from their decision to act in support of the Palestinians of Gaza, the group’s spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam said in a statement, adding that the movement’s military capabilities had been forged during years of brutal war and would not be easily destroyed.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced on X (formerly Twitter) that British Typhoon fighter jets “successfully took out specific Houthi military targets in Yemen, further degrading the Houthis’ capabilities.”
He denounced as “unacceptable” the attacks on merchant vessels in the Red Sea being perpetrated by Yemeni Shiite Houthi militants. The PM added that it is London’s duty to “protect innocent lives and preserve freedom.”
Earlier in the day, the US Central Command revealed that a series of combined air- and sea-launched strikes had taken out at least 36 Houthi targets in 13 locations across Yemen.
Hamas has reacted to the US and British strikes on Yemen, calling them “a blatant assault on the sovereignty of a sister Arab country and an escalation that will drag the region into further turmoil.”
The Palestinian armed group has called on the regional organizations such as the League of Arab States and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation “to take a decisive stance against the American aggression that violates the sovereignty of our Arab countries” and also to take practical steps towards stopping the Israeli attacks on Gaza, ongoing for over 120 days now.
The head of Iraq’s Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces) has demanded the withdrawal of US-led coalition troops from the country, following American airstrikes against the group, which is now integrated into Iraq’s regular armed forces, AFP has reported.
“Targeting the Hashd al-Shaabi is playing with fire,” Faleh al-Fayyad warned during a funeral ceremony for members of the group who were killed in the US attack. The Americans hit “administration offices, a hospital, they struck forces tasked with protecting the borders,” he claimed.
Hashd al-Shaabi said earlier that 16 of its fighters were killed and 36 were wounded on Friday, in what Washington called retaliatory strikes against Iran-backed forces in Iraq and Syria. The US was responding to a deadly drone strike on American troops stationed in Jordan a week ago.
”We urge the prime minister [of Iraq] to do everything in his power to defend the sovereignty and dignity of Iraq. And this can only be done with the departure of all coalition forces from Iraq,” Fayyad insisted.
The strikes on Yemen by the US and UK are “in stark contrast to Washington and London repeatedly claiming that they wouldn’t like to see war and conflict spread in the region,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said in a statement.
He described the attacks against the Houthis by the Americans and the British as “adventurism and a worrying threat to international peace and security.” The international community should hold the two countries responsible for those actions, Kanaani stressed.
The US and UK are themselves “stoking chaos, disorder, insecurity and instability” by supporting Israel amid its conflict with Hamas in Gaza, Kanaani added.
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron has said that the fresh round of strikes on Yemen by the US and UK followed “repeated warnings to the Houthis” from the Western nations.
By its “reckless” targeting of vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, the group is “putting innocent lives at risk, threatening the freedom of navigation and destabilizing the region,” Cameron wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “The Houthi attacks must stop,” he insisted.
The US Central Command has said its forces have destroyed a Houthi anti-ship cruise missile inside Yemen. The projectile that the militias were preparing to launch “presented an imminent threat to US Navy ships and merchant vessels in the region,” it said.
The incident happened several hours after the US and UK carried out large-scale airstrikes in Yemen, aimed at degrading the capabilities of the Houthis to disrupt shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The group has vowed that the attacks by Washington and London “won’t pass without response and punishment.”
The US-led coalition has targeted Yemen with 48 airstrikes in the past few hours, Houthi spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree has said on X (formerly Twitter). The US Central Command earlier announced that the bombing campaign had hit at least 36 targets in 13 locations in the country.
“These attacks will not deter us from our moral, religious and humanitarian stance in support of the steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip,” Saree insisted, adding that the actions of the US and the UK “won’t pass without response and punishment.”
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has affirmed his support of Washington’s latest military actions, calling the strikes “proportionate” and “retaliatory.”
“You can’t have the sort of attacks that we’ve seen and see no response – that’s whether it be the actions of the Houthis in targeting our trade, whether it be the attacks that occurred on Americans in Jordan,” Albanese told ABC on Sunday,
Albanese said he does not believe the US-led strikes could spark a wider conflict in the Middle East, insisting “we want to see the area settled down.”
The US-led coalition’s strikes against Yemen have complicated matters and moved any possibility of a political solution further out of reach, Iran’s Foreign Minister stated on Saturday, hours before yet another latest round of airstrikes took place. He also condemned attacks against Syria and Iraq, describing them as the “continuation of Washington’s wrong and failed approach to resolve issues by force and through militarism.”
The coalition strikes on Houthi military infrastructure were a collective message to the group that any further attacks on shipping will bear consequences, the US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin declared in a press statement on Saturday. He said the reid targeted “deeply buried weapons storage facilities, missile systems and launchers, air defense systems, and radars.”
Austin remarked that “these strikes are intended to further disrupt and degrade the capabilities of the Iranian-backed Houthi militia to conduct their reckless and destabilizing attacks against US and international vessels lawfully transiting the Red Sea.”
03 February 2024
The UK Ministry of Defense released additional details of its part in the coalition strikes on Yemen. British Typhoon aircraft, supported by Voyager tankers joined the US forces in Saturday’s strikes, the UK Defense Ministry published in a statement.
“The Typhoons employed Paveway IV precision guided bombs against multiple military targets identified by careful intelligence analysis at three locations,” the statement claimed.
The fighter jets attacked Houthi drone control facilities along the Red Sea coastline, where the Houthi operations had line of sight over the sea, according to the press release. The UK forces also attacked a “significant number of targets” at Bani.
The strikes in Yemen are allegedly unrelated to the US attacks in Syria and Iraq, and are purely a response to Houthi actions, a senior official in the US administration has told NBC news.
”They are unrelated to the action the United States took on Friday in response to the continued attacks on our troops and facilities in Iraq and Syria,” the source claimed.
The US Central Command has confirmed an air raid against at least 36 targets at 13 locations across Yemen, which allegedly included “multiple underground storage facilities, command and control, missile systems, UAV storage and operations sites, radars, and helicopters.”
“These strikes are intended to degrade Houthi capabilities used to continue their reckless and unlawful attacks on US and UK ships as well as international commercial shipping,” CENTCOM said.
The US and UK have carried out a series of combined air- and sea-launched strikes against at least 30 Houthi targets in Yemen on Saturday, AP reported citing anonymous military sources.
The joint operation was reportedly carried out by Tomahawk missiles launched from US Navy ships, and F/A-18 fighter-bombers launched from the aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower.
The UN Security Council is slated to hold an emergency meeting on Monday to discuss the latest US strikes in the Middle East. Russia has called for the meeting to “discuss threats to international peace and security from the US strikes against Iraq and Syria,” UN Representative Dmitry Polyanskiy posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday.
US forces destroyed six anti-ship cruise missiles on the ground in Yemen, claiming the Houthis were preparing to launch the projectiles against ships in the Red Sea, US Central Command announced.
Jordan denied involvement in Friday night’s strikes in Iraq, according to the Jordan News Agency. The attacks killed 16 Iraqis and have been condemned by Baghdad.
US forces shot down eight drones near Yemen on Friday, CENTCOM revealed in a post on X. One drone was downed over the Gulf of Aden in the morning and the other seven over the Red Sea almost 12 hours later. The owner of the drones was not revealed, and no injuries or damage to US assets was reported.
Four Houthi drones parked in Yemen were also destroyed before they could be launched after the US declared they posed an “imminent threat to merchant vessels and US Navy ships in the region.” Striking them was hailed as an act of self-defense.
“These actions will protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure for US Navy vessels and merchant vessels,” CENTCOM wrote.
Hamas condemned the US strikes on Iraq and Syria as a “dangerous escalation, an infringement on the sovereignty of the two Arab countries, and a threat to their security and the stability of the region” aimed at distracting from and covering up for Israel’s “horrific crimes” in Gaza.
The Biden administration “bears responsibility for the consequences of this brutal aggression,” the militant group said in a statement, arguing that the region “will not witness stability or peace except by stopping the Zionist aggression, crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing against our people in the Gaza Strip, and ending the Zionist-Nazi occupation.”
US airstrikes in Syria and Iraq that resulted in the death of civilians and damaged infrastructure have “once again demonstrated to the whole world the aggressive nature of US policy in the Middle East and Washington’s complete disregard for international law,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. She added that the recent actions by Washington are aimed only at “further escalation.”
The spokeswoman described the strikes as the largest US air operation in the Middle East since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, adding that Washington, “believing in its impunity, continues to sow destruction and chaos.”
“The recent events confirm: the US is not and has never been looking to solve problems in the region. This state of affairs, when chronic contradictions in the Middle East only get worse, has always suited Washington,” Zakharova said, noting that Russia would attempt to raise the issue in the UN Security Council.
Iraq’s Parliamentary Security and Defense Committee stated that the US attacks on the country’s soil “weaken the security interaction” between Baghdad and Washington, while calling for the conditions of the military cooperation to be reconsidered.
It also urged the government to accelerate the process of withdrawing US and coalition forces from Iraq, adding that their presence leads to instability.
Iran strongly condemns US airstrikes on targets in Syria and Iraq, Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani has said, adding that Washington violated the two countries’ sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Washington’s strike is “another adventure and strategic mistake by the American government, which will have no result other than the escalation of tension and instability in the region,” he said, according to the statement.
He also stressed that Tehran believes that by conducting strikes in the region, the US is simply helping Israel, which is locked in a conflict with the Palestinian armed group Hamas in Gaza. The root of the tensions, Kanaani continued, is “the occupation of the Israeli regime and the continuation of this regime’s military operations in Gaza and the genocide of the Palestinians with the unlimited support of the United States.”
The spokesman did not address US claims that it had targeted groups linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) Quds Force. Earlier, however, Tehran said that all regional groups are acting independently.
Iraq rejects US claims that it coordinated its attacks on facilities in the country with Baghdad, government spokesman Bassem Al-Awadi said, suggesting that by falsifying the facts, Washington sought to “mislead international public opinion and disavow legal responsibility.”
White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby earlier said that the US “did inform the Iraqi government prior to the strikes occurring.”
Al-Awadi went on to condemn what he called an “aggressive strike” by the US, reiterating that Iraq refuses “to let its lands be an arena for settling scores.”
“We affirm that the presence of the international coalition, which has deviated from the tasks assigned to it and the mandate granted to it, has become a reason for threatening security and stability in Iraq.”
American airstrikes in northwestern Iraq killed 16 people, including civilians, with another 25 wounded, Bassem Al-Awadi, the spokesman for the government in Baghdad, has said. The attacks also caused serious damage to residential buildings, he added.
The spokesperson for the UK government expressed support for the US’ “right to respond” to attacks, while declining to comment on Washington’s strikes in Syria and Iraq. “We have long condemned Iran’s destabilizing activity throughout the region, including its political, financial and military support to a number of militant groups,” the official noted, adding that the UK and US remain “steadfast allies.”
The US airstrikes which hit targets in Syria are yet another violation of the country’s sovereignty, the Arab country’s Foreign Ministry said, as quoted by SANA news agency. The strikes, the ministry added, are further proof that the US is “the main source of global instability and that its military forces threaten International peace and security,” accusing Washington of fueling the conflict in the Middle East region “in a very dangerous way.”
The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, has urged all parties involved in the stand-off in the Middle East to “try to avoid an escalation” while acknowledging that the situation in the region resembles a “boiler that can explode.”
Echoing those remarks, Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs Hadja Lahbib has warned of a “real risk of spillover” of the Middle East conflict, adding that the regional crisis will be on the agenda during informal talks of EU foreign affairs meeting in Brussels.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group for Shiite militias, has said it is carrying out strikes on US forces both in the country and Syria in response to Washington’s airstrikes, as quoted by Press TV.
The movement said that it targeted Ain al-Assad Airbase in the western part of Iraq and the al-Tanf military base in southeastern Syria at the intersection of the country’s borders with Jordan and Iraq. US officials have yet to comment on the matter.
The Syrian military, as quoted by SANA news agency, condemned what it called blatant US attacks in the eastern part of the country. It said the raid resulted in the death of a number of civilians and soldiers, with many wounded and public and private property damaged.
The statement added that the attacks also came in an area where Damascus’ forces were fighting IS (Islamic State, formerly ISIS) terrorists. “The aggression of the American occupation forces… has no justification other than an attempt to weaken the ability of the Syrian Arab Army and its allies in the field to combat terrorism.”
The US should withdraw its ground troops from the Middle Eastern countries that do not welcome them, independent candidate for president Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said. He claimed that the current escalation would not have been necessary if Washington had not put its military “in the crosshairs” of Shia militias, the existence of which he described “as a legacy of our illegal war in Iraq.”
He noted that both Iraq and Syria have demanded that US troops pull out, while Iran will not tolerate an American presence on its borders. “We must get unwelcome ground troops out of the Mideast, and maintain only long-standing bases welcomed by their national hosts,” Kennedy said, urging Washington to forge ties with regional powers instead.
He also described the US troops in the Middle East as “indefensible targets for anyone in the region who wants to provoke a conflict.”
The US strikes in Iraq and Syria will not be the last in the region, two unnamed US officials told Politico, adding that Washington could now focus on Yemen. The US had previously launched strikes on targets in the country, citing the threat the Houthis poses to maritime shipping in the Red Sea.
The Pentagon has published a brief video showing several B-1 bombers taking off from an airbase in the US ahead of the latest strikes in Syria and Iraq. “We will continue to take action, do whatever is necessary to protect our people, and hold those responsible who threaten their safety,” said CENTCOM Commander Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla.
The chairman of the Senate armed services committee, Democrat senator Jack Reed, voiced his support of President Biden’s “robust action,” claiming that “the 85 targets struck tonight mark a greater number than the prior administration.”
“Iran’s proxy forces in Syria and Iraq have been dealt a significant blow, and Iranian-linked militias around the Middle East should understand that they, too, will be held accountable,” he said.
The US has no plans to launch attacks on Iranian soil, and will focus on targeting Iranian-backed groups in Syria and Iraq to avoid a major escalation, a senior Biden administration official told CNN after the latest round of strikes.
“We do not seek a conflict with Iran,” White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Friday. “These targets were chosen to degrade and disrupt capabilities of IRGC and groups they sponsor and support.”
US Senator Roger Wicker welcomed the American military strikes, but stated they came “far too late,” blaming the numerous attacks in the region on Iran and its proxies.
“Instead of giving the Ayatollah the bloody nose that he deserves, we continue to give him a slap on the wrist,” the Senator said, condemning President Joe Biden’s administration for spending “nearly a week foolishly telegraphing US intentions to [their] adversaries, giving them time to relocate and hide.” He called on the US military to target the “actual sponsors of terrorism in the region.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson has condemned the administration of US President Joe Biden of “public handwringing and excessive signaling,” instead of a “clear and forceful response” to the deaths of US soldiers stationed in Jordan.
“Unfortunately, the administration waited for a week and telegraphed to the world, including to Iran, the nature of our response,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter), concluding that “America must project strength.”
The strikes were completed in around 30 minutes, and of the seven locations targeted, three were in Iraq and four were in Syria, said Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims, who heads the US Joint Staff.
Multiple explosions were heard in the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor, state news agency SANA reported, noting that the “American aggression” resulted in a partial power outages in the area. However, reports of a complete blackout in the province are not true, a source in the Syrian Ministry of Electricity told Sputnik.
The US allegedly waited for days to launch its strikes under the best possible weather conditions, as Washington sought to avoid “unnecessary casualties” and ensure that we’re “hitting all the right targets,” according to Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Sims.
“We feel confident – 85 individual targets within each location, we feel really confident about the precision of those targets… strong military targets,” Sims added, claiming “we hit exactly what we meant to hit.”
02 February 2024
US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has reacted to latest American airstrikes in Iraq and Syria by blasting President Joe Biden’s administration for having misplaced priorities and a failed foreign policy.
”This administration is the biggest failure in foreign policy and military strategy,” said Greene, a Georgia Republican, in a post on X (formerly Twitter). “Our troops are spread thin and sprinkled all over the world and left vulnerable to attacks, and we have all-time lowest military recruitment in history.”
The lawmaker added that Biden has allowed the US borders to be “ripped wide open,” flooding American cities with illegal aliens. “I say put our military at our southern and northern border and seal it tight,” Greene said.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby has claimed that the US airstrikes against Iranian-backed militia groups in Iraq and Syria were carefully targeted to avoid collateral damage.
The targets were “selected to avoid civilian casualties and based on clear, irrefutable evidence that they were connected to attacks on US personnel in the region,” Kirby told reporters.
Baghdad has rebuked the US over its latest bombings in Iraqi territory, warning that the airstrikes purportedly targeting Iranian-backed militias could create more instability in the region.
“These airstrikes constitute a violation of Iraqi sovereignty, undermine the efforts of the Iraqi government, and pose a threat that could lead Iraq and the region into dire consequences,” Iraqi military spokesman Yahya Rasool said in a statement.
US President Joe Biden has insisted that he doesn’t want to trigger a broader regional conflict amid the Israel-Hamas war, but Washington’s latest airstrikes against Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria show that he won’t tolerate attacks on American troops in the region.
”Our response began today,” Biden said in a statement, referring to a drone attack that killed three US soldiers on Sunday in Jordan. “It will continue at times and places of our choosing. The United States does not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world. But let all those who might seek to do us harm know this: If you harm an American, we will respond.”
US defense chief Lloyd Austin has warned that American forces are just getting started in a new bombing campaign against Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria.
“This is the start of our response,” Austin said in a statement. “The president has directed additional actions to hold the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guards) and affiliated militias accountable for their attacks on US and coalition forces. These will unfold at times and places of our choosing.” He added that Washington doesn’t seek a war in the Middle East, “but the president and I will not tolerate attacks on American forces.”
The airstrikes came hours after President Joe Biden attended a ceremony marking the arrival in the US of the troops who were killed in Jordan. The flag-draped coffins were removed from a transport plane at Dover Air Force Base in Biden’s home state of Delaware.
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) has confirmed that US forces have begun a new bombing campaign in the Middle East, saying that the operation involved “numerous aircraft,” including long-range bombers flown from the US, which dropped over 125 “precision munitions” on their targets.
Those targets were located across Syria and Iraq – but not Iran – and included command and control centers, intelligence sites, weapons caches, and supply-chain facilities of Iranian-backed militias, as well as “their IRGC sponsors who facilitated attacks against US and coalition forces,” according to CENTCOM.
American forces have reportedly commenced a series of airstrikes in Syria and Iraq in response to assaults on American military bases in the region in recent months, including a drone attack that killed three US soldiers and wounded more than 40 others.