Iran’s Proxies Fire Back After U.S. Airstrikes
NY Times
Eric Schmitt and
Just hours after U.S. fighter jets bombed facilities used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and its proxies in Syria early Friday, the proxies fired back — launching an attack drone at U.S. forces in western Iraq.
American air defenses shot down the drone a few miles from Al Asad Air Base, causing no injuries or damage on the ground, U.S. officials said on Friday. Pentagon officials also said that rockets were fired into northern Syria on Friday but landed far from American troops.
Pentagon officials have attributed the attacks to Iran-backed militias.
But the tit-for-tat raised questions about whether the airstrikes that were carried out after a flurry of rocket and drone attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria can achieve one of their major goals: to deter further attacks.
“The United States does not seek conflict and has no intention nor desire to engage in further hostilities, but these Iranian-backed attacks against U.S. forces are unacceptable and must stop,” Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said in a statement after what he described as “self-defense” strikes.
The airstrikes conducted by two Air Force F-16s and one F-15E were calibrated to send a strong message to Iran but not so strong as to escalate the hostilities, U.S. officials said. The targets were arms and ammunition storage buildings that supplied the Iran-backed militias involved in the recent attacks against Americans, Pentagon officials said.
“This was our way of saying ‘cut it out,’ but no more than that,” said Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute in Washington. “The Iranians won’t be deterred, of course, so this will likely prove to be the first step in several attempts to reinforce deterrence.”
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Since Hamas’s surprise attack against Israel on Oct. 7, President Biden and his aides have sought to prevent the war between Israel and Hamas from spilling over into a regional conflict with Iran and its proxies in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. The Pentagon has rushed two aircraft carriers and dozens of extra warplanes to the region to make this point.
But with the near daily attacks against U.S. forces over the past 10 days — the Pentagon’s tally climbed to at least 20 by late Friday — pressure had been mounting for a military response.
Republican critics and some air power advocates said on Friday that the U.S. retaliatory strikes were important but not enough to deter Iran and its proxies.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/27/us/politics/us-airstrikes-iran.html