Biden orders strike on Iranian-aligned group after 3 US troops injured in drone assault in Iraq
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden ordered the U.S. navy to hold out retaliatory strikes towards Iranian-backed militia teams after three U.S. servicemembers had been injured in a drone assault in Northern Iraq.
Nationwide Safety Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson mentioned one of many U.S. troops suffered vital accidents within the assault that occurred earlier Monday. The Iranian-backed militia Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated teams, below an umbrella of Iranian-backed militants, claimed credit score for the assault.
Biden, who’s spending Christmas on the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, was briefed on the assault. and ordered the Pentagon to organize response choices.
Protection Secretary Lloyd Austin and Biden’s nationwide safety staff shortly drew up plans and offered him with choices in a name and Biden directed strikes towards three areas utilized by Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated teams. The U.S. strikes had been carried out at about 4:45 a.m. on Tuesday in Iraq.
“The President locations no larger precedence than the safety of American personnel serving in hurt’s manner,” Watson mentioned. “The US will act at a time and in a fashion of our selecting ought to these assaults proceed.”
The most recent assault on U.S. troops follows months of escalating threats and actions towards American forces within the area for the reason that Oct. 7 Hamas assault on Israel that sparked the devastating struggle in Gaza. The U.S. has blamed Iran, which has funded and skilled Hamas, for the rising violence by its community of proxy teams throughout the area, together with assaults by Yemen’s Houthis towards business and navy vessels thorough a vital transport choke level within the Crimson Sea.
The Biden administration has sought to forestall the Israel-Hamas struggle from spiraling right into a wider regional battle that both opens up new fronts of Israeli combating or that attracts the U.S. in straight. The administration’s measured response — the place not each try on American troops has been met with a counterattack — has drawn criticism from Republicans.
The U.S. has 1000’s of troops in Iraq coaching Iraqi forces and combating remnants of the Islamic State group, and a whole bunch in Syria, totally on the counter-IS mission. They’ve come below dozens of assaults, although as but none deadly, for the reason that struggle started on Oct. 7, with the U.S. attributing accountability to Iran-backed teams.
