US airstrikes target ‘Iran-backed militia’ facilities in Syria on Biden’s orders - reports
February 26, 2021
The US has targeted Iran-backed militia in Syria, multiple media reported, citing unnamed officials. The airstrikes were approved by US President Joe Biden and intended as reprisal for rocket attacks on US bases in Iraq.
The attack on Thursday evening was described as a “strike against a site in Syria linked to Iranian-backed militias” by the Reuters correspondent at the Pentagon, citing an anonymous US official.
The officials tell Reuters the strike was approve by President Joe Biden and comes after a series of recent rocket attacks against U.S. targets in Iraq.
The strike “comes after a series of recent rocket attacks against US targets in Iraq,” Reuters added.
A CBS correspondent said the strike “was carried out in response to recent rocket attacks on locations in Iraq” where US troops and contractors were located.
BREAKING: @CBSDavidMartin reports that the US has conducted a strike against a site in Syria linked to Iranian-backed militias. He reports that it was carried out in response to recent rocket attacks on locations in Iraq where US troops & personnel are located.
There has been no official statement from the Biden administration about the attack as so far. Unconfirmed reports from Syria spoke of explosions near Al-Bukamal, a town in the Deir-ez-Zor province near the border with Iraq.
The reported airstrikes come after a series of rocket attacks on the Green Zone in Baghdad, the Balad Air Base and the Erbil International Airport in Iraq over the past two weeks. No group has claimed responsibility and the Pentagon has not officially blamed anyone.
This is not the first time the US has blamed Iran for attacks on American troops and contractors in neighboring Iraq. After one contractor died, the Trump administration targeted the Kataib Hezbollah militia and other Shia Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), which culminated in the drone assasination of General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of Iran, in January 2020.
Biden himself led the chorus of Democrats who denounced President Donald Trump’s move at the time, saying he “tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) had said the Soleimani strike risked “provoking further dangerous escalation of violence” and was undertaken without congressional authorization.
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