For the second time in nearly two weeks, the United States carried out airstrikes early Thursday against a facility used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its proxies in eastern Iraq and Syria.
The attacks by two Air Force F-15E jets on a weapons depot in Syria’s Deir al-Zour province came after U.S. airstrikes on October 27 against similar targets in eastern Syria failed to deter Iran or its proxies in Syria and Iraq. which prompted the US Biden administration to blame the attacks.
Not only have the attacks continued – there have been at least 22 more since the American retaliatory strikes last month – but Pentagon officials said they have become more dangerous. Iran-backed militias have packed even larger loads of explosives – more than 80 pounds – onto drones launched from American bases, U.S. officials said.
“This precision self-defense strike is in response to a series of attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria by affiliates of the IRGC and the Quds Force,” Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said in a statement. “The President has no higher priority than the safety of U.S. personnel, and he ordered today’s action to make clear that the United States will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests.”
“The United States is fully prepared to take further necessary actions to protect our people and our facilities,” he added. “We warn against any escalation.”
The attacks also came after the Pentagon said that a US military MQ-9 Reaper surveillance drone was shot down by Iran-backed Houthi rebels over the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen on Wednesday.
The downing of the drone, the mainstay of the American military’s aerial surveillance fleet, marked a further escalation of violence between the United States and Iranian-backed groups in the region. The incident highlighted the danger that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas could lead to a larger war.
Biden administration officials were trying to calculate how to deter Iran-backed Shiite militias from attacking American troops in the region without triggering this larger conflict, said three administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning.
“The attacks and threats from militias allied with Iran are completely unacceptable,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said Sunday in Iraq.
The Pentagon said Wednesday that there have been at least 41 attacks on U.S. forces in Syria and Iraq since Oct. 17 and that at least 46 U.S. soldiers have been injured, 25 of whom suffered traumatic brain injuries. The United States has 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria, mostly to help local forces fight remnants of the Islamic State.
At target-selection meetings, U.S. officials tried to gauge what response each attack would bring, one official said. Military officials in the Pentagon’s Central Command and in the American intelligence community have a good idea of where many militia leaders were, two officials said, and have been thinking over the last two weeks about possible setbacks if targeted airstrikes killed those leaders.
Efforts to coordinate retaliation were imprecise, officials acknowledged. The attack on the weapons depot early Thursday was aimed at “impairing and weakening” the militias’ ability to carry out attacks against American troops, a senior Pentagon official told reporters after the attack.
However, the strike was carried out late at night in Syria, when the likelihood of hitting Iranian personnel or militia fighters was low, Pentagon officials said.
The Biden administration is also using a “deconflict” line with Russia to manage escalation in Iraq and Syria, two officials said. Russia has troops in Syria, and American officials say they assume that telling Russia before an attack in Syria, as officials did before the recent U.S. attack, is the same as telling Iran , because Russian officials often inform Tehran about the upcoming events.
Some Republicans in Congress have criticized the administration for what they say is a weak U.S. response to the steady stream of attacks by Iran-backed militias.
“Pricking ammunition dumps in the desert will do absolutely nothing to deter Iran from attacking our troops,” Rep. Michael Waltz, a Florida Republican and former Army Green Beret, said in a letter Post on X after the recent air raids.
The United States has shifted its military assets to prevent a regional war since Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel on October 7.
It has an aircraft carrier stationed in the eastern Mediterranean near Israel and another now in the Red Sea heading south, as well as dozens more fighter jets in the Persian Gulf region. 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.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has repeatedly vowed to destroy Israel and drive back U.S. forces from the region, and the leaders of militant groups in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Gaza see Mr. Khamenei as powerful ally they often seek his advice and consult with him on strategic issues.
Despite the often strong rhetoric from Tehran, US officials believe Israel’s opponents are not seeking a major war.
“We expect Iran, Hezbollah and their affiliated allies to seek to coordinate their activities and avoid actions that would open a concerted second front with the United States or Israel, while still in the midst of the current conflict Incur costs,” Christine S. Abizaid, the head of the National Counterterrorism Center, told a Senate panel last week. “It’s a very fine line.”