US airstrikes in Iraq and Syria overnight Friday killed at least 39 people and wounded several dozen others.
The strikes late Friday hit more than 85 targets linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and related militias in the first of a series of retaliatory strikes after last weekend’s drone strike in Jordan that killed three US Army soldiers and wounded dozens more.
The successful attack angered Tehran about the “violation of sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani called the attack “another strategic and challenging mistake by the United States that will only result in increased tensions and instability in the region.”
The move also represents a significant escalation of conflict in the Middle East related to Israel’s nearly four-month war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
An initial battle damage assessment found the US hit every target it had planned, along with several “dynamic targets” that emerged as the mission progressed, including a surface-to-air missile site and a drone launch site, a US official said on Saturday.
Satellite image of the Jordanian military base where three US Army soldiers were killed Sunday. AP
Friday’s attack was aimed “to overshadow the crimes of the Zionist regime in Gaza,” Iran’s Kanaani insisted. “The cause of tension and crisis in the Middle East is Israel’s occupation and genocide of Palestine with the unlimited support of America,” he added.
Kanaani also urged the UN Security Council to prevent “illegal and unilateral US attacks in the region.” He did not say whether Iran would respond to the escalation.
Before the US retaliation, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said Iran would not start a war, but would “react strongly to anyone who tries to bully it.”
Several 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 will delay attacks on American troops to avoid “embarrassing” the Iraqi government.
Another Iraqi militia official on Saturday hinted at a possible de-escalation, while downplaying the US attack.
The US “must understand that every action provokes 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 want to escalate or widen regional tensions.”
Three US soldiers killed in Jordan: Kennedy Specialist Ladon Sanders, Sgt. William Jerome Rivers and and Expert Breonna Alexsondria Moffett. AP
The sites targeted in Iraq were mostly “without 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 US has not released a casualty estimate, but Iraqi government spokesman Bassim al-Awadi said Saturday that an attack in Iraq near the Syrian border killed 16 people, including civilians.
There was also “significant damage” to homes and private property, he added.
About 23 rank and file fighters were killed in the Syrian attack, according to Rami Abdurrahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Syrian state media did not provide a death toll.
A plane took off from an unidentified location, as the US launched airstrikes against targets linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. via REUTERS
Several US strikes in Iraq targeted the facilities of the Population Mobilization Forces, an Iranian-backed militia coalition, the spokesman 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 injured “while the search continues for the bodies of several missing people.”
Separately, the office of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudan condemned the attack as “a new invasion of Iraqi sovereignty” in a statement and called any claims that the Baghdad government coordinated with Washington officials before the attack “false”.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani spoke about the US attack on Saturday. Xinhua/Shutterstock
Iraq’s foreign ministry said it would convey a formal protest against the strike to the US embassy’s affairs. The US ambassador to Iraq, Alina Romanowski, is not in the country.
Iraq, in particular, has been in a precarious position since an Iranian-backed militia group known as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq began launching attacks on US bases in Iraq and Syria on October 18, claiming the attacks were retaliation against the US. Israel’s support in the war against Hamas.
Iraqi officials have been quietly trying to rein in the militias, while also condemning US retaliation and calling for the 2,500 US troops remaining in the country to leave.
Separately, Russia condemned the US airstrike, and called on the UN security council to investigate.
“It is clear that the airstrikes were deliberately designed to fuel the conflict,” Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Saturday. “By attacking, almost without pause, the facilities of allegedly pro-Iranian groups in Iraq and Syria, the US is deliberately trying to drive the largest country in the region into conflict.”
On Saturday morning, Russia asked the UN Security Council to meet on Monday to deal with the attack.
Former NATO Ambassador Kurt Volker said Biden is sending a message to Iran by not targeting it directly.
“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 beat us in our homeland, especially during an election year.'”
“I think they are trying to say… ‘You hit our friends overseas, we will hit your proxies overseas. Close this, don’t do it again,’” added the former ambassador.
With Postal wire
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
