They backed militia facilities The US says it’s applied airstrikes against Iran-backed militias near the Iraq-Syria border in response to drone attacks on its forces in Iraq. A Pentagon spokesman said the strikes targeted “operational and weapons storage facilities” at three locations. President Biden had been clear he would act to guard US personnel, he added. A powerful Iraqi militia alliance, the favored Mobilisation Forces (PMF), said four members of 1 faction were killed and threatened to retaliate. About 2,500 US troops are in Iraq as a part of a world coalition supporting local security forces in their fight against the jihadist group, Islamic State (IS). There is a minimum of five drone attacks against facilities utilized by the US and coalition personnel since April, US officials say. Rockets have also been fired at them and provide convoys are targeted by improvised explosive devices. How have the militias responded? The PMF – a coalition of mostly Iranian-backed Shia militias that was formed in 2014 to fight IS, and was incorporated into the Iraqi Security Forces three years ago – said the strikes killed four fighters completing an officially-sanctioned mission to stop IS militants infiltrating Iraq. It added that the fighters had “not [been] involved in any activity against the foreign presence in Iraq”, which the targeted locations did “not include any [weapon] stores or similar, in contrast to the claims made by the US”. “As such, we denounce and condemn within the strongest terms this sinful attack on our forces… and that we affirm that we maintain the right to reply to those attacks and hold accountable their perpetrators on Iraqi territory.” Iraqi military spokesman Maj-Gen Yehia Rasool also condemned the strikes, writing on Twitter that they represented “a blatant and unacceptable violation of Iraqi sovereignty and Iraqi national security”. He also reiterated Iraq’s “rejection of becoming a field for settling scores” and needed “calm and also the avoidance of escalation all told forms”. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said the US was “destroying security” within the Middle East and may “refrain from taking emotional steps, creating crises and tensions, and multiplying problems for people within the region”. Syrian state media reported that a baby was killed in an exceedingly strike near the Syrian border town of Albu Kamal timely Monday, and accused the US of seeking to undermine efforts to boost stability within the area. The Syrian government has relied heavily on support from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Shia militias during the country’s warfare, and that they have a major presence within the border region. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, said seven militia fighters were killed in strikes near Albu Kamal. What did the US target? Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the “defensive precision airstrikes” that passed off timely Monday were intended to “disrupt and deter” drone attacks on US personnel in Iraq. They targeted facilities at two locations in Syria and one inside Iraq that were employed by several Iran-backed groups, including Kataib Hezbollah and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, he added. US media reported that the strikes – the second round targeting Iran-backed militias ordered by President Biden since he took office in January – were disbursed by US Air Force F-15s and F-16s using satellite-guided munitions. “We took necessary, appropriate, deliberate action that’s designed to limit the chance of escalation, but also to send a transparent and unambiguous deterrent message,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters in Rome. The US has designated Kataib Hezbollah as a distant terrorist organization since 2009 and has accused it of completing many attacks against US forces in Iraq in recent years. Its leader, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, was killed alongside top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani during a US drone strike in Baghdad last year that then-President Donald Trump ordered following a series of attacks in Iraq that were blamed on Iran-backed groups. This February, US aircraft bombed a border-control point in Syria utilized by Kataib Hezbollah and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada in response to a rocket attack on a US-led coalition airbase in Irbil that killed one Filipino civilian contractor and wounded six people. The attack was claimed by a gaggle widely seen as a front for Kataib Hezbollah and other militias. Monday’s strikes come as Iran and world powers try to revive the 2015 nuclear deal. The agreement has been near collapse since 2018 when Mr. Trump abandoned it and reinstated sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy. Iran retaliated by gradually breaching agreed limits on its nuclear activities. Mr. Biden wants to rejoin the deal, but he says Iran must return to compliance before the sanctions are lifted. Iran insists that he must lift the sanctions first.
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