The Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces said that 16 of its fighters were killed and 25 others were wounded in a US strike on a command center in Anbar Governorate, western Iraq. Washington has linked Kataib Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed faction within the Popular Mobilization Forces, to the drone attack that killed the three American reservists on Sunday at a remote site in Jordan near the Syrian border.
The Iraqi government also said that the death toll reached 16 people, but said that the number included an unspecified number of civilians. Separately, an Iraqi local official said that at least two civilians were killed in the town of al-Qaim al-Anbar on the Syrian border, where weapons depots were targeted. The Washington Post was unable to independently verify the numbers.
An Iraqi government spokesman described the US air strikes as “blatant aggression.”
Iraqi army spokesman Bassem Al-Awadi said, “This aggressive strike puts security in Iraq and the region on the brink of abyss, and conflicts with efforts to establish the required stability.” He said that the government, a strategic partner of the United States, refused to use Iraqi lands “as a battlefield to settle scores.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring network, said 18 militants were killed in strikes on 26 sites linked to Iran in Syria. The Syrian government said that “a number” of soldiers and civilians were killed, but did not specify their number.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry condemned the strikes, saying they “fuel conflict” in the Middle East.
The overnight strikes on 85 targets, which used B-1 bombers launched from the United States, were part of what US officials say will be a days-long campaign against regional targets linked to Iran.
“Our response begins today. It will continue at times and in places we choose,” President Biden said in a statement on Friday. “Let all those who may seek to harm us know: If you harm an American, we will respond,” he added.
US officials described the operation as a carefully calibrated military response aimed at deterring further attacks on US interests in the region while avoiding intensifying the cycle of regional conflict.
“The Biden administration is trying hard to achieve a balance between deterrence and de-escalation,” said Abdul Rasoul Devsalar, an Iranian affairs specialist at the Middle East Institute. “I think the balance is there.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani described the strikes as another American “strategic mistake” in addition to its support for Israel during its war on Hamas. He added that it contributes to “tension and instability” in the region.
Devisalar said the cost to Iran is not significant militarily because Tehran had time over the past week to evacuate personnel and equipment from sites likely to be in the line of fire. He added that Iran knows that further retaliation could cause an “escalation cycle,” and both the United States and Iran have indicated their desire to avoid further conflict. He added that while Iran-linked militias may carry out their own retaliatory operations, they will likely be low-intensity and largely face-saving.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a branch of the Popular Mobilization Forces that includes the most extremist factions, announced that it carried out an attack on American forces at a base in the northern city of Erbil on Saturday in response to the American strikes. Kataib Hezbollah, also a member of the Islamic Resistance, announced a halt to attacks on US forces after the deadly drone strike in Jordan, but other militias said they planned to continue.
The US Embassy in Baghdad refused to comment on the Erbil attack allegations. A spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, the US military coalition supporting Iraq's fight against Islamic State militants, did not respond to requests for comment.
US Central Command said that more than 125 precision-guided munitions were fired at assets belonging to “militia groups and their affiliated militants.” [Iranian military] “The herdsmen who facilitated attacks against US and coalition forces” during the attack.
Iranian agents in the Middle East have escalated their attacks on the United States and Israel since the beginning of the war in Gaza. Israeli authorities say Hamas and allied fighters stormed out of the Strip on October 7 to kill about 1,200 people in Israel and take 253 hostage. Israel responded with a military campaign that killed more than 27,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
Specifications die. Breonna A. Moffett, 23, Sgt. William J. Rivers, 46, specs. Kennedy was L. Sanders, 24, a member of an Army Reserve unit based at Fort Moore, Georgia, was the first to launch more than 170 attacks on U.S. military bases in the region, according to the Institute for the Study of War, particularly in the region. Syria and Iraq, since October 7. More than 50 soldiers were injured, at least one seriously, in the strike on Tower 22, a key support base for the larger US facility at Al-Tanf in Syria.
The United States has launched dozens of retaliatory strikes since October 7, including a strike in Baghdad that killed a senior commander in the Hezbollah al-Nujaba movement, another Iran-linked group.
Washington has also bombed the Iran-linked Houthis in Yemen, who are attacking commercial ships in what they say is a protest against the Gaza war.
Salim reported from Baghdad; Al Shamaa reported from Beirut. Susannah George in Dubai and Missy Ryan, Dan Lamothe and Alex Horton in Washington contributed to this report.
