On Friday night, American airstrikes in Iraq and Syria killed at least 39 people and injured dozens more.
The airstrike late Friday was the first retaliation for last weekend’s drone attack in Jordan that killed three U.S. soldiers and injured dozens, targeting more than 85 people linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and affiliated militias. attacked the target.
The successful attack left the Iranian government furious about the “violation of its sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Qanani said the attack was “another adventurous and strategic mistake by the United States, which will only lead to increased tensions in regional instability.”
The move also marks a significant escalation in the Middle East conflict linked to Israel’s nearly four-month war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Initial combat damage assessments indicate that in addition to the targets planned by the United States, the missiles struck several “dynamic targets” that emerged as the mission unfolded, including surface-to-air missile launch sites and drone launch sites. did. US officials said on Saturday..
Iran’s Qanani claimed Friday’s attack was aimed at “covering up the Zionist regime’s crimes in Gaza.” He added: “The root cause of the tensions and crises in the Middle East is the Israeli occupation and massacre of the Palestinian people with unrestricted American support.”
Mr. Qanani also called on the U.N. Security Council to prevent further “illegal and unilateral U.S. attacks in the region.” He did not say whether Iran would respond to escalation.
Ahead of the U.S. retaliation, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said Iran had no intention of starting a war, but “will firmly respond to those who try to bully Iran.”
Some of the main Iranian-backed militias in Iraq have vowed to continue fighting ostensibly in support of Gaza, but the militia known as Kataib Hezbollah has said that it is trying to avoid “embarrassing” the Iraqi government. He said he would suspend attacks on U.S. forces.
Another Iraqi militia official on Saturday hinted at the possibility of de-escalation, while specifically downplaying the U.S. attack.
Hussein al-Mosawi, a spokesman for Harakat al-Nujaba, one of Iraq’s main Iranian-backed militias, said the US “needs to understand that any action will provoke a reaction.” But he added: “We do not want to escalate or increase tensions in the region.”
Al-Mosawi said most of the targeted locations in Iraq had “no combatants or military personnel at the time of the attack,” suggesting there may not have been enough damage to warrant a strong response. did.
The United States has not announced casualty figures, but Iraqi government spokesman Basim al-Awadi said Saturday that airstrikes in Iraq near the Syrian border had killed 16 people, including civilians.
There was also “significant damage” to homes and private property, he added.
About 23 civilian fighters were killed in the Syrian attack, according to Rami Abdulrahman of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Syrian state media did not give a total number of casualties.
A spokesperson said some of the US strikes in Iraq targeted facilities of the Population Mobilization Forces, an Iranian-backed militia coalition. The sites attacked also included the group’s official security headquarters.
In addition to the dead, 36 people were injured, the coalition said in a statement, “while searches for the bodies of a number of missing persons are still ongoing.”
Separately, Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudan’s office condemned the attack in a statement as “another invasion of Iraq’s sovereignty” and said the Baghdad government had coordinated with Washington officials before the attack. He said all claims that he had done so were “lies.”
Iraq’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that it would lodge a formal protest against the airstrike against the US embassy’s charge d’affaires. Alina Romanovsky, the US ambassador to Iraq, is not in Iraq.
Iraq in particular has been in a precarious position since an Iranian-backed militia known as the Iraqi Islamic Resistance Forces began attacks on U.S. military bases in Iraq and Syria on October 18. Support for Israel in its war with Hamas.
While secretly working to rein in the militias, Iraqi officials have denounced U.S. retaliation and called for the withdrawal of the 2,500 U.S. troops remaining in the country.
Separately, Russia condemned the US airstrikes and asked the UN Security Council to investigate.
“It is clear that the airstrike is deliberately planned to further escalate the conflict,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Saturday. She said: “The United States is deliberately pushing the region’s largest country into conflict through near-constant attacks on alleged pro-Iranian facilities in Iraq and Syria.”
On Saturday morning, Russia asked the UN Security Council to meet on Monday to address the attack.
Former NATO ambassador Kurt Volker said Biden sent a message to Iran by not targeting it directly.
“I think what the administration is trying to do by not attacking Iran is trying to send a signal to Iran,” Volcker said. Said said in an interview with NewsNation. “‘Please don’t attack our homeland, especially in an election year.'”
“I think what they’re trying to say is… ‘You attack our people overseas, we attack your agents overseas.’ Shut this down, stop this,” the former president said. the ambassador added.
with post wire
