United States Military Attacks Pro-Iran Militia Facilities In Syria

Air raid illustration. (Wikimedia Commons)

JAKARTA - United States (US) President Joe Biden on Thursday local time-ordered US military airstrikes in eastern Syria against facilities belonging to what the Pentagon says are Iran-backed militias. This attack was linked to a rocket attack on a US-led coalition military base in Iraq last week.

Biden's decision to strike only in Syria and not in Iraq, at least for now, also gave the Iraqi government some breathing room as it carried out its own investigation into the February 15 attack that injured Americans.

"At the direction of President (Joe Biden), US military forces carried out airstrikes against infrastructure used by Iranian-backed militant groups in eastern Syria", Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.

“President Joe Biden will act to protect American and Coalition personnel. At the same time, we have acted in a deliberate manner aimed at degrading the overall situation in both eastern Syria and Iraq", Kirby continued.

He added that the attack destroyed several facilities at border control points used by several Iranian-backed militant groups, including Kata'ib Hezbollah (KH) and Kata'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada (KSS).

There was no official comment from Syria on the attack, but state-owned Ekhbariya TV quoted its reporter in Deir al-Zor as saying the attacks had taken place at dawn against several targets near Syria's border with Iraq.

A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the decision to carry out the attack was intended to send that signal, in the meantime want to punish the militias, they don't want the situation to turn into a bigger conflict.