![]() In this June 2023 photo from the US Air Force, a B-1B Lancer aircraft conducts a demonstration on in TanTan, Morocco. Sims also said that the timing of the strikes was designed around good weather, in “an interest of ensuring that we’re hitting all the right targets.” Sims said Friday that the bombers flew in a “single non-stop flight” from the US, “all of that enhanced by our Transportation Command and our ability to gas and go along the way.” The strikes took place soon after Biden attended a dignified transfer and met family members of the soldiers killed in Jordan.ī-1 bombers – long-range heavy bombers that can deploy precision and non-precision weapons –were used in the operations, a defense official told CNN. Douglas Sims, the director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday that the locations of the strikes were chosen “with an idea that there would likely be casualties” among the IRGC and militia personnel who use them. He added that US military aircraft was now out of harm’s way. Kirby had earlier said the US did not know now how many militants were killed or wounded. Unlike other Iran-backed groups around the region, the PMU is tied to the Iraqi government and is closely linked to Iran-aligned Shiite blocs that for years dominated politics in Iraq. The PMU is a predominantly Shiite Iran-backed paramilitary force based in Iraq. The attacks also targeted facilities used by Iranian-linked al Hashd al Shabi – or Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) – in the Iraqi city of Al-Qaim, Iraqi officials said. Iraq said the US strikes killed at least 16 people, including civilians, and injured 25 others. Syria’s state-run news agency SANA said the airstrikes had hit the areas of Deir Ezzor, Al-Bukamal, Al-Mayadeen, and their surroundings on the Syrian-Iraqi border. The Syrian military on Saturday said the US strikes had killed civilians and soldiers and caused “significant damage” to infrastructure.ĬNN cannot independently verify the number or nature of the casualties. ![]() “We believe that the strikes were successful,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said. “(The US) launched a blatant air aggression against a number of sites and towns in the eastern region of Syria, and near the Syrian-Iraqi border, which led to the martyrdom of a number of civilians and soldiers, the injury of others, and the infliction of significant damage to public and private property,” the Syrian Ministry of Defense said in a statement. “The facilities that were struck included command and control operations, centers, intelligence centers, rockets, and missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicle storages, and logistics and munition supply chain facilities of militia groups and their IRGC sponsors who facilitated attacks against US and Coalition forces,” the statement added.ĭefense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the strikes are “the start of our response.” The airstrikes employed more than 125 precision munitions,” the statement said. “US military forces struck more than 85 targets, with numerous aircraft to include long-range bombers flown from the United States. US Central Command confirmed in a statement that airstrikes were carried out in Iraq and Syria “against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force and affiliated militia groups.” ![]() But the administration is threading a needle – they want to deter and stop further attacks but avoid a full-scale conflict with Iran breaking out in a region already roiled by the continuing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. The strikes on Friday were markedly more significant than previous attacks on Iranian-backed militias over the last several weeks, which have primarily focused on weapons storage or training facilities. But let all those who might seek to do us harm know this: If you harm an American, we will respond,” Biden said. “The United States does not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world. President Joe Biden said in a statement that the US military response “will continue at times and places of our choosing.” The retaliatory strikes – which lasted 30 minutes and were successful, according to the White House – came in response to a drone strike by Iran-backed militants on a US military outpost in Jordan on Sunday, which killed three US service members and wounded more than 40 others. The US conducted major airstrikes on 85 targets across seven locations in Iraq and Syria on Friday, the start of what will likely be a series of larger-scale US strikes on Iranian-backed militias who have carried out attacks on US troops in the Middle East.
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