Washington has launched a new bombing campaign against Iranian-backed fighters in Iraq and Syria
© X / Partisangirl
The Pentagon has commenced retaliation strikes in response to a drone attack that killed three US troops at a secretive base in Jordan, targeting dozens of sites in Iraq and Syria linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) Quds Force and affiliated militia groups.
“Our response began today” and “will continue at times and places of our choosing,” US President Joe Biden announced on Friday night. The airstrikes started around midnight on Saturday local time and hit more than 85 Iranian-linked targets, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement.
The bombings come nearly one week after a drone packed with explosives struck Tower 22, a US base in Jordan located near the Syrian and Iraqi borders, killing three soldiers and wounding more than 40 others. The attack, which the US blamed on the Iranian-backed Islamic Resistance in Iraq, marked the first deaths of American troops in a wave of assaults triggered by the Israel-Hamas war.
© X / Partisangirl
The Pentagon has commenced retaliation strikes in response to a drone attack that killed three US troops at a secretive base in Jordan, targeting dozens of sites in Iraq and Syria linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) Quds Force and affiliated militia groups.
“Our response began today” and “will continue at times and places of our choosing,” US President Joe Biden announced on Friday night. The airstrikes started around midnight on Saturday local time and hit more than 85 Iranian-linked targets, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement.
The bombings come nearly one week after a drone packed with explosives struck Tower 22, a US base in Jordan located near the Syrian and Iraqi borders, killing three soldiers and wounding more than 40 others. The attack, which the US blamed on the Iranian-backed Islamic Resistance in Iraq, marked the first deaths of American troops in a wave of assaults triggered by the Israel-Hamas war.
- 04 February 2024
06:15 GMT
The US Central Command has said its forces have destroyed a Houthi anti-ship cruise missile inside Yemen. The projectile that the militias were preparing to launch “presented an imminent threat to US Navy ships and merchant vessels in the region,” it said.
The incident happened several hours after the US and UK carried out large-scale airstrikes in Yemen, aimed at degrading the capabilities of the Houthis to disrupt shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The group has vowed that the attacks by Washington and London “won’t pass without response and punishment.” - 05:52 GMT
The US-led coalition has targeted Yemen with 48 airstrikes in the past few hours, Houthi spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree has said on X (formerly Twitter). The US Central Command earlier announced that the bombing campaign had hit at least 36 targets in 13 locations in the country.
“These attacks will not deter us from our moral, religious and humanitarian stance in support of the steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip,” Saree insisted, adding that the actions of the US and the UK “won’t pass without response and punishment.” - 02:01 GMT
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has affirmed his support of Washington’s latest military actions, calling the strikes “proportionate” and “retaliatory.”
“You can’t have the sort of attacks that we’ve seen and see no response – that’s whether it be the actions of the Houthis in targeting our trade, whether it be the attacks that occurred on Americans in Jordan,” Albanese told ABC on Sunday,
Albanese said he does not believe the US-led strikes could spark a wider conflict in the Middle East, insisting “we want to see the area settled down.”
- 01:49 GMT
- 01:47 GMT
The US-led coalition’s strikes against Yemen have complicated matters and moved any possibility of a political solution further out of reach, Iran’s Foreign Minister stated on Saturday, hours before yet another latest round of airstrikes took place. He also condemned attacks against Syria and Iraq, describing them as the “continuation of Washington’s wrong and failed approach to resolve issues by force and through militarism.” - 00:00 GMT
The coalition strikes on Houthi military infrastructure were a collective message to the group that any further attacks on shipping will bear consequences, the US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin declared in a press statement on Saturday. He said the reid targeted “deeply buried weapons storage facilities, missile systems and launchers, air defense systems, and radars.”
Austin remarked that “these strikes are intended to further disrupt and degrade the capabilities of the Iranian-backed Houthi militia to conduct their reckless and destabilizing attacks against US and international vessels lawfully transiting the Red Sea.” - stock https://www.rt.com/news/591739-us-retaliation-strikes-updates/
