Eric Schmitt
The Pentagon said the airstrikes against facilities used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and its proxies were in retaliation for recent rocket and drone attacks on American forces.
Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon spokesman, said attacks last week by Iranian-backed militants had left 19 U.S. service members in Iraq and Syria suffering from traumatic brain injuries.Credit...Kevin Wolf/Associated Press
The United States carried out two airstrikes against facilities used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and its proxies in eastern Syria early Friday in retaliation for a flurry of recent rocket and drone attacks against American forces in Iraq and Syria.
The strikes by Air Force F-16 jets, against a weapons storage facility and an ammunition storage facility, were intended to send a strong signal to Iran to rein in the attacks the Biden administration has blamed on Tehran’s proxies in Syria and Iraq without escalating the conflict in the Middle East, U.S. officials said. The targets, while limited in number, represent an escalation in striking facilities used by Iran’s own forces in the region, not just the militias in Iraq and Syria that Tehran helps to arm, train and equip.
“These precision self-defense strikes are a response to a series of ongoing and mostly unsuccessful attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-backed militia groups,” Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said in a statement.
Eric Schmitt is a senior writer who has traveled the world covering terrorism and national security. He was also the Pentagon correspondent. A member of the Times staff since 1983, he has shared four Pulitzer Prizes.
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