The United States struck facilities linked to Iran-backed militias after an earlier attack on Monday injured three service members in the most serious attack on American troops in Iraq and Syria, according to the Pentagon and White House.
According to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, US military forces conducted “necessary and proportionate” strikes on the facilities in direct response to the Monday attack by the Iran-affiliated Kataib Hezbollah group on Erbil Air Base in Iraq.
Despite more than 100 claimed attacks on US and coalition bases in Iraq and Syria since Oct. 17, Monday’s was the first to result in critical injuries to US troops and could signal a further escalation in tensions in the region.
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“President Biden was immediately briefed on the attack this morning, and he ordered the Department of Defense to prepare response options against those responsible. Those options were then presented to the President during a call this afternoon with Secretary of Defense Austin and members of the President’s national security team,” the statement read.
“During that call, the President directed strikes against three locations utilized by Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated groups focused specifically on unmanned aerial drone activities,” the statement continued.
“The President places no higher priority than the protection of American personnel serving in harm’s way. The United States will act at a time and in a manner of our choosing should these attacks continue.”
According to the statement, the attack on Monday injured three US personnel and critically injured one. Several servicemembers have been injured in previous attacks, but the Pentagon has classified their injuries as minor.
Since the attacks began, US fighter jets have bombed facilities belonging to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its regional proxy groups three times, with Monday’s strikes marking the fourth premeditated retaliation.
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