WASHINGTON – The United States launched air strikes in Iraq and Syria early Monday morning against two Iran-backed militias that the Pentagon said had carried out drone strikes against American personnel in Iraq in recent weeks, the Department of Defense said.
“On orders from President Biden, US forces launched precision air defensive strikes tonight against facilities used by Iran-backed militias in the Iraqi-Syrian border region,” Pentagon spokesman John F. Kirby said in a statement.
Kirby said the facilities were used by Iranian-backed militias, including Kata’ib Hezbollah and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, to store weapons and ammunition for attacks on locations where Americans were in Iraq. There have been no immediate reports of casualties, but a post-action military review is ongoing, Pentagon officials said.
The strikes were the second time Mr Biden ordered the use of force in the area. The United States carried out air strikes in eastern Syria in late February against buildings that the Pentagon said were Iran-backed militias responsible for attacks on American and allied personnel in Iraq.
The most recent attacks were carried out by US Air Force fighter-bombers stationed in the area.
Pentagon planners have been collecting information about the websites and militia networks they use for weeks, American officials said on Sunday. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and General Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefed Mr Biden on the potential for attack earlier last week, and Mr Biden agreed to attack the three targets, officials said.
The strikes came a little over a week after Iranian hardliner Ebrahim Raisi was elected as his next president.
The military action also came when negotiations aimed at bringing the United States and Tehran back into compliance with an international nuclear deal reached a crucial point. President Donald J. Trump pulled the United States out of the deal in 2018, and Mr Biden tried to revive it.
On Sunday, Foreign Minister Antony J. Blinken discussed the nuclear deal negotiations with Israel’s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, who said Israel had “serious reservations” about the deal, which would ease sanctions against Iran in return for restrictions on its nuclear weapons program.
Earlier this month, the Biden government blocked access to countless websites related to Iran after the nation held a presidential vote to appoint Mr. Raisi, a close ally of the chief leader of the clerical government, as its highest elected official .
For weeks now, there has been pressure from Democrats and Republicans in Congress, as well as some of Mr Biden’s top advisors and commanders, to crack down on American diplomats and the 2,500 US soldiers in Iraq who train and advise Iraqis against the drone threat avenge forces.
At least five times since April, the Iran-backed militias have deployed small, explosive-laden drones that ricochet bombs on their targets during nighttime attacks on Iraqi bases – including those used by the CIA and US special forces. So far, no Americans have been injured in the attacks, but officials are concerned about the precision of the drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs
The drones are part of a rapidly evolving threat from Iranian proxies in Iraq, with militias specializing in using more sophisticated weapons to hit some of the most sensitive American targets in attacks that have escaped US defenses.
Iran, weakened by years of tough economic sanctions, is using its proxy militias in Iraq to increase pressure on the United States and other world powers to negotiate easing these sanctions as part of a possible revival of the 2015 nuclear deal. Iraqi and American officials say Iran developed the drone strikes to minimize the number of casualties in order to avoid US retaliation.
American officials said the attacks – against two targets in eastern Syria and a third just across the border in Iraq – were carried out around 1 a.m. local time by a mix of Air Force F-16 and F-15Es stationed in the region.
The fighter-bombers dropped several bombs – £ 500 and £ 2,000 satellite ammunition – on each of the three structures. American officials said the militias used the targeted sites in Syria primarily for storage and logistics purposes; The site hit in Iraq was used to launch and recover the armed drones that officials said were either made in Iran or used Iranian technology.
Kirby and other government officials called the strikes defensive, but leading lawmakers on Sunday called for more details.
“Congress needs to be notified immediately of these air strikes,” said Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, who has led the struggle to limit the president’s powers of war for a decade on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “If the attacks were against militias using UAVs to attack American personnel, it would be a justified conventional self-defense action. But we need to know more. “
Michael P. Mulroy, a former CIA officer and senior Middle East policy official at the Pentagon, has warned that using the technology provided by the Iranian Quds Force – the outward-facing arm of the Iranian security apparatus – drones are rapidly becoming more sophisticated and relatively minor Costs.
“This action should send a message to Iran that it cannot hide behind its proxy forces to attack the United States and our Iraqi partners,” Mulroy said on Sunday.
But Mr Biden’s top aides have also said they want to avoid the angry rhetorical taunts and threats that Mr Trump often makes with Iran and its deputies in Iraq, and avoid escalating tensions with Tehran at one time in which the White House tries to nail down the nuclear deal.
The February air strikes against the same militias were also a relatively small, carefully calibrated military response: seven 500-pound bombs dropped on a small cluster of buildings at an unofficial border crossing on the Syrian-Iraqi border with the aim of destroying weapons and fighters smuggle.
These earlier attacks took place just across the border in Syria to avoid a diplomatic backlash against the Iraqi government. The same calculation influenced the planning of the attack on Monday – two of the three targets were in Syria along the Iraqi border, and the third was directly on Iraqi territory. The strikes took place early Monday in part to avoid civilian casualties, officials said.
“The United States has taken necessary, appropriate and deliberate measures to limit the risk of escalation – but also to send a clear and unequivocal message of deterrence,” said Kirby.
How the militias and Iran will react is unclear, and American officials said the relatively small air strikes were unlikely to stop the militia strikes entirely. After the February strikes, there was a lull in militias against American sites for weeks, but then an even more dangerous threat emerged: the small armed drones.
Jennifer Steinhauer, Julian Barnes and John Ismay contributed to the coverage.
