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- Overview
- Biden seeks to deter widening conflict
WASHINGTON — The United States launched attacks Friday against 85 sites in Iraq and Syria used by Iranian forces and Iran-backed militants, its first retaliatory strikes for the killing of three American soldiers in Jordan last weekend, U.S. officials said.
U.S. military forces struck targets at seven facilities tied to attacks on U.S. personnel in the region, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters. U.S. Central Command said the facilities included command and control operations, intelligence centers, rockets and missiles, and drone storage sites.
“Our response began today. It will continue at times and places of our choosing,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. “The United States does not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world. But let all those who might seek to do us harm know this: If you harm an American, we will respond.”
The military action is a significant escalation in Washington’s bid to deter the growing threat from Iran-backed groups across the Middle East — a step fraught with risk abroad and at home, as Biden seeks to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from spiraling into a wider conflict while working to secure his re-election.
The Biden administration had made clear that the U.S. would take military action after the drone attack by Iran-backed militants at a remote U.S. base in Jordan, in which more than 40 others were wounded. Biden attended the dignified return of the three slain U.S. soldiers at Dover Air Force Base earlier Friday.
Syrian state television reported that the strikes killed and wounded people, but it did not specify an exact number of casualties.
Even as Biden and his deputies vowed to retaliate, they have added the caveat that Washington does not seek a war with Iran or a wider conflict in the region, a sentiment that was reiterated in the president’s statement on Friday. Their calibrated statements appeared to indicate that it was unlikely the reprisal strikes would hit targets inside Iran itself.
“We will continue to work to avoid a wider conflict in a region, but we will take all necessary actions to defend the United States, our interests and our people,” Austin told reporters at a Pentagon news conference Thursday.
Austin repeated much of that statement on Friday after the strikes, adding in part that “the president and I will not tolerate attacks on American forces.”
Iran has denied involvement in the drone attack and said that it, too, does not seek a direct confrontation with the U.S.
After previous attacks by Tehran-backed groups in Iraq and Syria that wounded but did not kill some American troops, Biden ordered airstrikes that targeted the militants’ weapons depots and other sites. But the pace of rocket and drone attacks dramatically increased after the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip.
There have been more than 160 attacks on U.S. forces by Iran-backed groups since Oct. 7, according to the Pentagon.
- 3 min
- Dan De Luce,Mosheh Gains,Daniel Arkin
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Feb 4, 2024 · The new barrage of attacks follow yesterday's airstrikes on 85 targets at seven facilities in Iraq and Syria. A senior administration official said today's attacks are unrelated to Friday's...
