Arish Mujawar, Pune
The US military has done a bunch of airstrikes against militias supported by Iran in Syria and Iraq in response to a drone strike that resulted in three US soldiers losing their lives in Jordan last week.
As per the Pentagon, they targeted over 85 sites and used more than 125 precision weapons. They even brought in long-range bombers from the US! They hit those places where militias and their Iranian supporters do all their command and control stuff, launch rockets and missiles, store drones, and support logistics and fuel supply.
The main goal of this airstrike, as said by the Pentagon, was to weaken Iran and its proxy militias’ capability to launch attacks on US and coalition forces.
President Joe Biden had promised to strike back after the drone attack on a US base in Jordan that happened on Sunday, and it killed three Army Reserve troops and messed up over 40 others. This is the first time US soldiers have been killed in the area since the Israel-Gaza conflict began in October.
The US blamed Iran and said their proxies were behind the attack. They even claimed that the drone came straight from Iran! But Iran said they had nothing to do with it and called the US allegations lies and baseless.
These US airstrikes might blow things up even more between the US, Syria, and Iran. They have been quietly fighting each other in the Middle East for years. Syria’s pretty mad about the US attacks and called them a total violation of their sovereignty and territory. They promised to take any necessary measures to protect their lands and people.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group that watches the war, six guys from a pro-Iran militia group got killed in the US airstrikes in eastern Syria, near the Iraqi border. And get this, three of those guys weren’t even Syrian!
Right now, the US has around 2,500 troops in Iraq and a few hundred in Syria. They’re there mostly to help local forces fight against the Islamic State group. But these US troops keep getting attacked with rockets and drones by the Iranian-backed militias. This all started after the US killed Iran’s top general, Qassem Soleimani, in Baghdad back in January 2020.
While the US doesn’t want to go to war with Iran, they made it clear that they won’t tolerate any attacks on their people and interests. President Biden said in a press release on Friday, “Let everyone know that if they hurt an American, we’re gonna hit ’em back!”