Why Did the Us Return to Iraq and Attack Again
U.S. Carries Out Airstrikes in Iraq and Syria
The attacks were against weapons storage facilities used by Iranian-backed militias that the Pentagon said had conducted drone strikes confronting places in Iraq where American troops, spies and diplomats were located.
WASHINGTON — The The states carried out airstrikes early Monday morning time in Iraq and Syria against two Iranian-backed militias that the Pentagon said had conducted drone strikes confronting American personnel in Iraq in recent weeks, the Defense force Department said.
"At President Biden's direction, U.S. military forces earlier this evening conducted defensive precision airstrikes against facilities used by Iran-backed militia groups in the Iraq-Syria border region," the Pentagon spokesman, John F. Kirby, said in a statement.
Mr. Kirby said the facilities were used by Iranian-backed militias, including Kata'ib Hezbollah and Kata'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, to store artillery and ammunition for carrying out attacks against places where Americans were located in Iraq. In that location were no immediate reports of casualties but a military after-action review is ongoing, Pentagon officials said.
The strikes were the 2d time that Mr. Biden has ordered the utilise of force in the region. The United States carried out airstrikes in eastern Syria in belatedly February against buildings belonging to what the Pentagon said were Iran-backed militias responsible for attacks confronting American and allied personnel in Republic of iraq.
The latest strikes were carried out by U.Southward. Air Force fighter-bombers based in the region.
Pentagon planners accept been gathering information for weeks on the sites and militia networks that utilise them, American officials said on Sunday. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin Three and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefed Mr. Biden on attack options early last calendar week, and Mr. Biden canonical striking the iii targets, the officials said.
The strikes were carried out a piffling more a week after Iran elected a hard-liner, Ebrahim Raisi, as its next president.
The military action likewise came as the negotiations intended to bring the United States and Tehran back into compliance with an international nuclear accord have reached a crucial juncture. President Donald J. Trump pulled the United States out of the accordance in 2018, and Mr. Biden has been seeking to revive information technology.
On Sunday, Secretary of Land Antony J. Blinken discussed the negotiations on the nuclear bargain with Israel'south foreign minister, Yair Lapid, who said State of israel had "serious reservations" virtually the accord, which would ease sanctions on Iran in return for limits on its nuclear program.
Earlier this month, the Biden administration blocked access to myriad websites linked to Iran after the nation held a presidential vote to install Mr. Raisi, a shut ally of the clerical government's supreme leader, equally its top elected official.
Force per unit area has been edifice for weeks from Democrats and Republicans in Congress, and from some of Mr. Biden's top directorate and commanders, to retaliate against the threat posed past the drones to American diplomats and the 2,500 U.S. troops in Republic of iraq who are training and advising Iraqi forces.
At least five times since April, the Iranian-backed militias have used pocket-size, explosive-laden drones that divebomb and crash into their targets in belatedly-night attacks on Iraqi bases — including those used by the C.I.A. and U.South. Special Operations units, according to American officials. And so far, no Americans have been injure in the attacks, but officials worry nearly the precision of the drones, also called unmanned aerial vehicles, or U.A.5.s.
The drones are role of a speedily evolving threat from Iranian proxies in Iraq, with militia forces specialized in operating more sophisticated weaponry hitting some of the virtually sensitive American targets in attacks that evaded U.S. defenses.
Iran — weakened by years of harsh economic sanctions — is using its proxy militias in Iraq to step up pressure on the United states and other world powers to negotiate an easing of those sanctions every bit part of a possible revival of the 2015 nuclear bargain. Iraqi and American officials say Iran has devised the drone attacks to minimize casualties to avoid prompting U.Southward. retaliation.
American officials said the strikes — against two targets in eastern Syria and a 3rd just across the border in Iraq — were carried out most 1 a.one thousand. Mon local time by a mix of Air Force F-16s and F-15Es based in the region.
The fighter-bombers dropped multiple bombs — 500-pound and 2,000-pound satellite-guided munitions — on each of the three structures. American officials said the militias used the sites targeted in Syria mainly for storage and logistics purposes; the site hit in Iraq was used to launch and recover the armed drones, which officials said were either made in Islamic republic of iran or used Iranian engineering.
Mr. Kirby and other administration officials characterized the strikes every bit defensive, but leading lawmakers demanded more than details on Dominicus.
"Congress must be briefed on these airstrikes without delay," said Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, who has led the fight to limit presidential war powers for a decade from the Senate Strange Relations Committee. "If the strikes were against militias that were using U.A.5.due south to assault American personnel, that would be a conventional self-defense force action that is justified. But we need to know more than."
Michael P. Mulroy, a sometime C.I.A. officer and top Middle East policy official at the Pentagon, has warned that with the technology provided by Islamic republic of iran's Quds Force — the strange-facing arm of Islamic republic of iran's security apparatus — the drones are rapidly condign more sophisticated at a relatively low cost.
"This activeness should transport a message to Iran that it cannot hide backside its proxy forces to attack the United States and our Iraqi partners," Mr. Mulroy said on Sunday.
Only Mr. Biden's top aides have besides said they desire to avoid the angry rhetorical jabs and tit-for-tat threats that Mr. Trump oft engaged in with Iran and its proxies in Iraq, and avert escalating tensions with Tehran at a time when the White House is trying to boom down the nuclear deal.
The airstrikes in February against the same militias were also a relatively small, advisedly calibrated war machine response: vii 500-pound bombs dropped on a small cluster of buildings at an unofficial crossing at the Syria-Iraq border used to smuggle across weapons and fighters.
Those before strikes were just over the edge in Syria to avoid diplomatic blowback to the Iraqi government. The same calculus influenced the planning for the strike on Monday — two of the three targets were in Syrian arab republic along the Iraqi edge, and the third was just inside Iraqi territory. The strikes took place early Mon in part to avert any civilian casualties, officials said.
"The U.s. took necessary, appropriate and deliberate action designed to limit the risk of escalation — but also to transport a articulate and unambiguous deterrent message," Mr. Kirby said.
How the militias and Iran will respond is unclear, and American officials said the relatively small set up of airstrikes were unlikely to stop the militia attacks completely. After the February strikes, there was a lull in militia activity against American locations for several weeks, but and then an even more dangerous threat emerged: the small armed drones.
Jennifer Steinhauer , Julian Barnes and John Ismay contributed reporting.
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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/27/us/politics/us-airstrikes-iraq-syria.html
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