US strikes targets in Iraq and Syria after Middle East drone attack kills three soldiers
'Let all those who might seek to do us harm know this,' President Biden said in a statement announcing the attacks, 'If you harm an American, we will respond.'
WASHINGTON — U.S. warplanes unleashed a barrage of 85 strikes Friday against Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Force and militias in Iraq and Syria linked to Sunday's attack in Jordan that killed three soldiers.
The airstrikes used 125 precision munitions, according to U.S. Central Command. The targets included rockets, missiles, drones and logistics systems used by the militias to attack U.S. and its allies, as well as centers for command and control and intelligence,
''The United States does not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world,'' President Joe Biden said in a statement announcing the attacks. "But let all those who might seek to do us harm know this: If you harm an American, we will respond."
The strikes lasted about 30 minutes and targeted seven facilities – three in Iraq and four in Syria, said John Kirby, White House spokesman for national security issues.
Kirby said targets were carefully selected to avoid civilian casualties and were based on “a clear, irrefutable evidence that they were connected to the attacks on U.S. personnel” in the region.
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Defense Department officials are in the early stages of assessing the damage, Kirby said, “but we believe that the strikes were successful."
An escalating conflict
Three U.S. Army reservists were killed and dozens wounded Sunday in a drone attack at a U.S. base along the Jordanian-Syrian border. Biden and other officials blamed the attack on Iranian-supplied militias.
Friday's U.S. attacks escalated a conflict in the Middle East that has mushroomed since Hamas attacked Israel Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people. Israel's invasion of Gaza, in response, has killed 26,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza's health ministry.
U.S. officials do not know how many, if any, militants may have been killed or wounded in the strikes, Kirby said. But the U.S. made the strikes believing “there would likely be casualties associated with people inside those facilities," said Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims, director of the Joint Staff.
Several factors affected the timing of the strikes, including the weather, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly. Another issue involved timing the strikes to ensure they targeted militants.
Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin indicated more strikes are likely. "Our response began today," Biden said. "It will continue at times and places of our choosing."
Austin reiterated that point, noting that the attack Friday was ''the start of our response.''
''The President has directed additional actions to hold the IRGC and affiliated militias accountable for their attacks on U.S. and coalition forces," he said.
An elite Iranian force
The attack targeted Iran's Quds Force, according to U.S. Central Command. The Quds Force is an elite part of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps specializing in irregular warfare. The warplanes included some flown from the United States, indicating the Pentagon used B-2 long-range stealth bombers.
Since October, militant groups that receive equipment and training from Iran have launched more than 200 attacks across the Middle East. They range from Houthis in Yemen firing missiles into commercial shipping lanes in the Red Sea to militants in Iraq and Syria peppering bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq, Syria and Jordan with rockets, missiles and drones.
Degrading, but not deterring, Iran-backed militias
The Pentagon has responded, on occasion, with airstrikes aimed at Houthi missiles and radar sites, and sites used by militants in Iraq to launch rockets and missiles. But White House and Pentagon officials have stressed that they wanted no part of a wider war in the Middle East.
"Biden's strategy is less centered on deterring these militias and more on degrading their capability to strike the US," Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said in a statement. "By that, the White House implicitly admits that the strikes will not stop the militias from continuing their attacks, just as the bombing of Yemen has not stopped Houthi attacks."
"There is no escaping this reality: Nothing in the region is likely to de-escalate unless there is de-escalation in Gaza," said Parsi, who has been critical of US support for Israel's war.
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Until Sunday most of the attacks by militants had caused mostly minor injuries and little damage to infrastructure at the bases. That changed when defenders at the Tower 22 base in Jordan, near the border with Syria, mistook an enemy drone for friendly aircraft and allowed it to sail over the wall, according to U.S. officials.
Troops in Syria on an unpopular mission
The Pentagon has about 3,000 troops in Iraq, Syria and Jordan to advise local forces on fighting the remnants of ISIS.
Biden said the government of Iran was ultimately to blame for the deaths of the three U.S. soldiers in their barracks. "I do hold them responsible in the sense that they're supplying the weapons to the people who did it," he told reporters on Tuesday.
A poll released by the Washington, D.C.-based Defense Priorities think tank conducted in conjunction with online survey firm YouGov found that many Americans do not realize the U.S. has troops stationed in Syria. And even if Americans are aware of this troop presence, they do not strongly support the Biden administration's stated reason for keeping them there: to prevent ISIS' resurgence.
The poll, which was conducted prior to the attack in Jordan, also found that general support for the U.S. troop presence in Syria decreased as its cost in American lives increased.
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Contributing: Kim Hjelmgaard