The US unleashed airstrikes against Iran-backed militias in Iraq on Tuesday after a weekend rebel assault on an Iraqi airbase that injured multiple American troops, officials said.
“Today, at President Biden’s direction, US military forces conducted necessary and proportionate strikes on three facilities used by the Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia group and other Iran-affiliated groups in Iraq,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement.
“These precision strikes are in direct response to a series of escalatory attacks against US and Coalition personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-sponsored militias,” Austin added.
US Central Command noted that Tuesday’s strikes hit Kataib Hezbollah’s “headquarters, storage, and training locations for rocket, missile, and one-way attack UAV capabilities.”
The retaliatory attack came after four American soldiers were examined for potential traumatic brain injuries Saturday after a ballistic missile and rocket attack at the Al-Asad Air Base in Iraq, ABC News reported.
US authorities said they anticipated the possibility of additional troops stepping forward with TBI symptoms. An Iraqi military official was also reported injured in the blast.
The base, which houses American and other international troops, was the target of 15 rocket attacks, with nearly all the missiles intercepted by the military, Iraqi police told AFP.
But two of the rockets struck the airbase.
Austin warned that while the US wants to avoid war from spreading beyond the Israel-Hamas conflict, America will not allow attacks on its troops and bases to go without consequences.
“The President and I will not hesitate to take necessary action to defend them and our interests,” he said in his statement. “We are fully prepared to take further measures to protect our people and our facilities.”
The US has 2,500 troops in Iraq and another 900 stationed in Syria to advise local forces on how to quell any possible return of the Islamic State, which managed to seize vast amounts of territory in both nations in 2014 before it was eventually defeated.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a loose coalition of Iran-backed militia groups opposing US support of Israel in the war against Hamas, claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack.
Since the war in Gaza began, Tehran proxy militia forces have attacked the US military at least 59 times in Iraq along with another 83 times in Syria, as vengeance for America’s support of Israel.
The US has also recently clashed with the Iran-backed Houthi terrorist group in Yemen and the Red Sea, with American and British soldiers launching a new round of airstrikes against them Monday.
The bombings targeting the Houthi rebels’ strongholds — including drone and missile sites and even an underground bunker — were the eighth US-led strikes against them in 11 days.
The goal of the missile strikes was to take out Houthi military supplies that could be used to attack commercial ships in the Red Sea — an initiative the US-designated terrorist group claims was in response to Israel’s bombing of Gaza.