WASHINGTON — The US army launched airstrikes in opposition to what it stated had been 9 Iran-linked militia targets in Syria on Monday in response to a spate of current assaults on US bases within the nation since yesterday.
US Central Command, the Pentagon’s subsidiary headquarters for the Center East, stated its forces “carried out strikes in opposition to 9 targets in two places related to Iranian teams in Syria in response to a number of assaults on US personnel in Syria during the last 24 hours.”
“These strikes will degrade the Iranian-backed teams’ means to plan and launch assaults on US and coalition forces who’re within the area to conduct D[efeat]-ISIS operations,” CENTCOM stated in a press launch.
“Our message is obvious. Assaults in opposition to US and coalition companions within the area won’t be tolerated,” the highest US commander within the area, US Military Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, stated within the readout. “We are going to proceed to take each step mandatory to guard our personnel and coalition companions and reply to reckless assaults,” Kurilla’s assertion continued.
Al-Monitor has reached out to CENTCOM for extra readability on the strikes.
Why it issues: It was the primary wave of retaliatory US strikes in opposition to the militias acknowledged by the US CENTCOM in a number of months, because the Biden administration has sought to keep away from fueling a heady cycle of retaliation between, on one aspect, Iran and the panoply of armed militias it backs all through the Levant area and, on the opposite, the USA and Israel.
US plane beforehand launched strikes on what CENTCOM described as greater than 85 Iran-linked paramilitary and native militia targets and killed Kataib Hezbollah’s prime commander for Syria in a Baghdad drone strike in February.
What’s subsequent: Iranian officers have vowed to retaliate in opposition to Israel and probably the USA for Israel’s newest strikes inside Iranian territory, which disabled the nation’s Russian-supplied S-300 air defenses, Al-Monitor beforehand reported.
However US protection officers who spoke on the situation of anonymity stated they don’t see proof that Iran intends to go forward with one other overt assault in opposition to Israel. The prior two bouts of direct Iran retaliation in opposition to Israel, consisting of missile and drone barrages on Oct. 1 and April 13, had been largely shot down by Israeli air defenses supported by US and different allied militaries.
Late final month, the US army stated it bombed ISIS positions within the distant central Syrian desert, concentrating on ISIS “senior leaders” at “recognized ISIS camps.” Though the US and native militias captured ISIS’ remaining territory on the Battle of Baghouz in jap Syria in March 2019, ISIS assaults have risen in each Syria and Iraq over the previous yr as Russia and the US army have diverted property to different priorities.
Know extra: Al-Monitor’s Elizabeth Hagedorn has the rundown on what the Biden administration can — and doubtless cannot — accomplish in its remaining days in workplace.
