At least 18 pro-Iranian fighters were killed Friday in US strikes in eastern Syria and Iraq. This response comes after the death of three American soldiers killed in Jordan last weekend.
Joe Biden promised a response on Friday during the funeral of the three American soldiers killed last week on a Jordanian base. The threat was not long in coming: the United States carried out strikes on Friday targeting elite Iranian forces and pro-Iranian groups in Iraq and Syria.
A massive attack: according to the White House, American combat planes targeted 85 targets on seven different sites – three in Iraq and four in Syria – causing at least 18 deaths, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It was the fighters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the ideological army of the Iranian regime, and its elite unit who were struck.
Command and intelligence centers, as well as drone and missile storage infrastructure belonging to militias and Iranian forces were destroyed.
Baghdad immediately denounced a “violation of Iraqi sovereignty”, while the United States claimed “to have warned the Iraqi government before the strikes”.
This American raid follows the death of the three soldiers killed in Jordan, near the Syrian border, where 350 American soldiers are stationed as part of the fight against the Islamic State group. Their bodies were repatriated to the United States on Friday.
The United States quickly pointed the finger at Iraqi armed groups supported by Iran. Since October, American forces in Iraq and Syria have suffered at least 165 drone attacks or rocket attacks, according to an official, but this was the first time that American soldiers lost their lives.
These attacks are linked to the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Over the past two weeks, the United States has also carried out several airstrikes in Yemen to protect maritime traffic in the Red Sea against pro-Iranian Houthi militias.
Joe Biden has already warned that the response will continue “according to the timetable and in the places” that Washington “decides”.
Many experts in Washington believe that Iran will not take the risk of a direct conflict with the world’s leading power but that it has strengthened itself since the war in Gaza and its support for Hamas by rallying more support in the Arab world.