On Sunday, the United States (US) Air Force conducted airstrikes on facilities used by Iran-backed militia groups in Iraq and Syria on the orders of President Joe Biden. Washington claimed that militants used these facilities to launch drone attacks on the US troops stationed in the region.
At President Biden's direction, US military forces earlier this evening conducted defensive precision airstrikes against facilities used by Iran-backed militia groups in the Iraq-Syria border region. Our full statement here. https://t.co/6tRkh6zsLU
— John Kirby (@PentagonPresSec) June 28, 2021
The airstrikes specifically targeted “operational and weapons storage facilities at two locations in Syria and one location in Iraq,” as per a US Department of Defence (DoD) statement. It added that several Iranian proxy groups, including Kataib Hezbollah and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, used the facilities to target the US’ interests in the region.
The DoD stressed that Biden “will act to protect the US personnel” and facilities in Iraq and Syria. “Given the ongoing series of attacks by Iran-backed groups targeting US interests in Iraq, the President directed further military action to disrupt and deter such attacks,” the statement read. It mentioned that the US was in Iraq “at the invitation of the Government of Iraq,” and its only purpose was to ensure the defeat of Islamic State terrorists. The Pentagon stated that the airstrikes were carried out following international law, which states that a country has a right to self-defence when attacked.
According to Syrian human rights watchdog Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), at least five militia members were killed and several others were wounded in the airstrike. The SOHR also noted that the US jets targeted the “movements of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in the border area and inside Syrian territory.”
Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, supported the airstrikes, saying they were “a targeted and proportional response to a serious and specific threat.” Pelosi proclaimed that protecting “the military heroes who defend our freedoms is a sacred priority.”
Rudaw reported that the PMF confirmed the attacks and vowed revenge on the US by promising to “avenge the blood of our righteous martyrs.” The group said, “From now on, we will enter an open war with the American occupation” and target their aircraft.
It is the second time that Biden ordered an attack on Iran-backed proxies in Iraq and Syria. In February, the US carried out strikes in Syria, killing several PMF militants. As per reports, the recent strikes were carried out in retaliation to an attack on two Iraqi military bases—the Baghdad airport camp and the Balad military airbase—hosting the United States (US) troops and foreign contractors earlier this month.
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Over the last few months, US military installations in Iraq have increasingly come under attack from local militias aligned with Iran. In May, the Ain Al Asad military base in Iraq’s Anbar province, hosting the US forces, was targeted in a drone attack. In April, five people, including two foreign contractors and three Iraqi soldiers, were wounded in a rocket attack on the US-made Balad airbase situated in Baghdad.
Tensions between Iran and the US escalated in January 2020 when a US drone attack killed Qassem Soleimani, Iranian Quds Force Chief, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, leader of Iraqi militias like the PMF and Kataib Hezbollah, accused of orchestrating attacks on the US personnel in the region. Iran has been trying to increase its foothold in the Middle East and uses local militias in countries like Iraq, Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon to expand its military presence.