US hits pro-Iran militias in Syria, in first Biden military move

WASHINGTON/ BAGHDAD–The US military struck facilities in eastern Syria used by Iran-backed armed groups Thursday, saying US President Joe Biden’s new administration was sending Tehran a message after recent rocket attacks on US troop locations in Iraq.

In its first military action against Iran-linked groups since Biden became president five weeks ago, the US Defence Department said it had carried out airstrikes at a Syria-Iraq border control point used by those groups, destroying “multiple facilities.”

“At President Biden’s direction, US military forces earlier this evening conducted airstrikes against infrastructure utilized by Iranian-backed militant groups in eastern Syria,” said spokesman John Kirby in a statement.

“These strikes were authorised in response to recent attacks against American and Coalition personnel in Iraq, and to ongoing threats to those personnel,” he said.

Kirby did not say whether there were any casualties in Thursday’s attack.

But the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that 17 people were killed after the strike hit three trucks loaded with munitions coming from Iraq near the Syrian city of Bukamal.

The group said all the dead were from Iraq’s state-sponsored Hashed al-Shaabi force, the umbrella group over many small militias that have ties to Iran.

“I’m confident in the target that we went after, we know what we hit,” Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters flying with him from California to Washington, shortly after the airstrikes which were carried out Thursday evening Eastern Standard Time.

The airstrike was the first military action undertaken by the Biden administration, which in its first weeks has emphasised its intent to put more focus on the challenges posed by China, even as Mideast threats persist. Biden’s decision to attack in Syria did not appear to signal an intention to widen US military involvement in the region but rather to demonstrate a will to defend US troops in Iraq.

The US has in the past targeted facilities in Syria belonging to Kata’ib Hezbollah, which it has blamed for numerous attacks targeting US personnel and interests in Iraq. The Iraqi Kata’ib is separate from the Lebanese Hezbollah movement.

Defence Secretary Austin said he was “confident” the US had hit back at the “the same Shia militants that conducted the strikes,” referring to a February 15 rocket attack in northern Iraq that killed one civilian contractor and wounded a US service member and other coalition personnel.

Austin said he had recommended the action to Biden.

“We said a number of times that we will respond on our timeline,” Austin said. “We wanted to be sure of the connectivity and we wanted to be sure that we had the right targets.”

Earlier, Kirby said the US action was a “proportionate military response” taken together with diplomatic measures, including consultation with coalition partners.

“The operation sends an unambiguous message: President Biden will act to protect American and coalition personnel,” Kirby said.

Kirby said the US airstrikes “destroyed multiple facilities at a border control point used by a number of Iranian-backed militant groups,” including Kata’ib Hezbollah and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada.

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Representative Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the strikes were the right move.

“Responses like this are a necessary deterrent and remind Iran, its proxies, and our adversaries around the world that attacks on U.S. interests will not be tolerated,” McCaul said.

Suzanne Maloney, of the Brookings Institution think-tank, said the strikes showed the Biden administration could negotiate with Iran on the nuclear deal while pushing back against the militias it backed.

“Good move by… Biden (administration) demonstrating US can walk and chew gum at the same time,” she said on Twitter.

Mary Ellen O’Connell, a professor at Notre Dame Law School, criticised the US attack as a violation of international law.

“The United Nations Charter makes absolutely clear that the use of military force on the territory of a foreign sovereign state is lawful only in response to an armed attack on the defending state for which the target state is responsible,” she said. “None of those elements is met in the Syria strike.”

Biden administration officials condemned the February 15 rocket attack near the city of Erbil in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish-run region, but as recently as this week officials indicated they had not determined for certain who carried it out. Officials have noted that in the past, Iranian-backed Shia militia groups have been responsible for numerous rocket attacks that targeted US personnel or facilities in Iraq.

Kirby had said Tuesday that Iraq is in charge of investigating the February 15 attack. He added that US officials were not then able to give a “certain attribution as to who was behind these attacks.”

A little-known Shia militant group calling itself Saraya Alwiya al-Dam, Arabic for Guardians of Blood Brigade, claimed responsibility for the February 15 attack. A week later, a rocket attack in Baghdad’s Green Zone appeared to target the US Embassy compound, but no one was hurt.

Iran this week said it has no links to the Guardians of Blood Brigade.

The frequency of attacks by Shia militia groups against US targets in Iraq diminished late last year ahead of Biden’s inauguration. The groups are widely seen as proxies of Iran, which is now pressing America to return to Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal.

The US under the previous Trump administration blamed Iran-backed groups for carrying out multiple attacks in Iraq. Tensions soared after a Washington-directed drone strike that killed top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and powerful Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis last year.

US forces have been significantly reduced in Iraq to 2,500 personnel and no longer partake in combat missions with Iraqi forces in ongoing operations against ISIS.