The United States carried out two airstrikes early Friday against facilities used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its proxies in eastern Syria, in retaliation for a series of recent missile and drone attacks against American forces in Iraq and Syria.
The attacks by Air Force F-16 jets on a weapons depot and an ammunition depot should send a strong signal to Iran to curb the attacks that the Biden administration attributes to Tehran’s proxies in Syria and Iraq, without escalating the conflict in the Middle East, U.S. officials said. While the number of targets is limited, they represent an escalation in attack assets used by Iran’s own forces in the region, not just the militias in Iraq and Syria that Tehran helps arm, train and equip .
“These precision self-defense strikes are in response to a series of sustained and largely unsuccessful attacks by Iran-backed militia groups on U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria,” Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said in a statement.
“The United States does not seek conflict and has no intention or desire to engage in further hostilities, but these Iranian-backed attacks against U.S. forces are unacceptable and must stop,” Austin said.
Since Hamas’s surprise attack against Israel on October 7, President Biden and his aides have sought to contain the war between Israel and Hamas and prevent it from spiraling into a regional conflict with Iran and its proxies in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq expands.
To that end, the United States has deployed two aircraft carriers in the eastern Mediterranean near Israel and dozens of additional fighter jets in the Persian Gulf region to deter Iran and its proxies in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq from preparing for a regional war to let in. The Pentagon has also rushed additional Patriot missile defense batteries and other air defense systems to several Gulf states to protect U.S. troops and bases in the region.
But with near-daily attacks on U.S. forces over the past 10 days – the Pentagon’s count rose to at least 19 as of late Thursday – pressure has mounted on the United States to respond militarily.
The aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower was stationed in the eastern Mediterranean. Photo credit: Anderson W. Branch/US Department of Defense, via Agence France-Presse – Getty Images
“These narrow self-defense attacks were designed solely to protect and defend U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria,” Austin said. “They are separate and distinct from the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas and do not represent a change in our approach to the Israel-Hamas conflict.”
He added: “If attacks by Iranian proxies on U.S. forces continue, we will not hesitate to take further necessary actions to protect our people.”
A senior Defense Ministry official told reporters in a briefing late Thursday that the airstrikes were not coordinated with the Israeli military.
Pentagon officials gave few details about the attacks themselves, how much damage they caused and what kind of response they might prompt from Iran and its allies. They reported as follows:
Two Air Force F-16 fighter jets stationed in the region dropped precision-guided bombs on a weapons depot and an ammunition depot near Abu Kamal, Syria. Although no missiles or drones were fired from the facility, officials said munitions stored at the facilities were used in recent attacks against U.S. forces.
Pentagon officials said there were people on site during the day Thursday, but it was unclear whether Iranians or militia members were injured or killed in the attacks.
As in the past, the United States chose to strike Iranian-backed targets in eastern Syria rather than southern Iraq, where the groups operate with wide latitude. Government officials have urged Iraqi officials to take action against the groups in the area, but have had no success. Nevertheless, conducting American airstrikes could have a destabilizing effect on the Iraqi government, which works closely with the US government.
“The United States sent a message tonight,” Mick Mulroy, a former defense official and retired CIA officer, said in a statement late Thursday. “We will take direct action against Iran, and particularly the IRGC, if they continue to attack our military positions and personnel in Iraq and Syria.”
Mr. Biden, asked on Wednesday about drone strikes against U.S. military personnel in Iraq and Syria in recent days, said he had warned Iran “that if they continue to act against these troops, we will respond.”
Friday’s retaliatory US strikes came just hours after the Pentagon announced that 19 US military personnel stationed in Iraq and Syria suffered traumatic brain injuries after being attacked by Iran-backed militants with missiles and drones last week had been.
The Defense Ministry had previously said 21 military personnel suffered minor injuries but returned to duty after attacks on October 17 and 18 at Al Asad air base in western Iraq and al-Tanf garrison in southern Syria.
The al-Tanf military outpost in southern Syria in 2018. Source…Lolita Baldor/Associated Press
Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon spokesman, said Thursday that 15 of the 17 soldiers injured at al-Tanf and all four soldiers injured at Al Asad were later diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries.
“As we have seen in the past, there are situations where a member self-reports ringing in the ears or headache several days after an attack,” said Gen. Ryder, who said there have been no other diagnoses of traumatic brain injury since then.
There are 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria, mostly helping local allies carry out counterterrorism missions against the Islamic State.
Friday’s airstrikes follow a pattern established early in the Biden administration of retaliation against Iran-linked groups for attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria.
Shortly after taking office, the president ordered the bombing of buildings in eastern Syria that the Pentagon said belonged to Iranian-backed militias responsible for a rocket attack on an Iraqi airport on February 15, 2021. That attack killed a Filipino contractor for the U.S.-led military coalition and injured six other people, including five Americans.
In June 2021, the United States carried out airstrikes in Iraq and Syria against two Iranian-backed militias that the Pentagon said had carried out drone strikes against American personnel in Iraq.
In August 2022, the United States struck militant groups linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in northeastern Syria, killing at least two fighters. Those attacks followed rocket attacks by Iranian-backed forces, one of which injured three U.S. soldiers.
In March of this year, US intelligence concluded that a self-destructing drone of “Iranian origin” had killed a US contractor and injured another contractor and five US soldiers in an attack on a maintenance facility at a coalition base in northeastern Syria.
Mr. Biden responded by ordering the Pentagon to conduct airstrikes against facilities in eastern Syria used by groups linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, but not against Iranian forces themselves.
Asked by reporters Thursday when the administration would retaliate for the latest wave of attacks against American troops, Gen. Ryder said the United States always reserves the right to self-defense. “If we decide to respond,” General Ryder said, “we would do so at a time and place of our choosing.”
The time had come early on Friday morning in eastern Syria.
John Ismay contributed reporting.