President Biden’s decision to order airstrikes targeting facilities near the Iraq-Syria border that have been used by Iran-backed militia groups was a clear warning to Tehran while the administration continues to negotiate to revive the 2015 nuclear deal.
Lawrence J. Korb, the senior fellow at American Progress Action Fund and a former assistant secretary of defense, said in an interview that the airstrikes—carried out by fighter-bombers—were essentially Biden "serving notice" to Tehran.
"The first time he used military force was about a month after he was inaugurated," Korb told Al Jazeera. "I think it was no accident that he did it then to send that signal to Iran. The fact that he’s doing it now while they are about to undergo the seventh round of talks on the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] is him saying: ‘Just because we are there, it doesn’t mean we are going to ignore [these other problems]."
John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said Sunday that the airstrikes targeted facilities used by Iran-backed militia groups that have used the facilities as staging grounds to launch attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq. He called the strikes "necessary, appropriate, and deliberate action designed to limit the risk of escalation."
He said the strikes did send an "unambiguous deterrent message."
A U.S. defense official with knowledge of the strikes told Fox News that US Air Force F-15s and F-16s were used in the operation. The strikes took place at approximately 6 p.m. Eastern Time, or 1 a.m. local time.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement that the strikes seemed to be a "targeted and proportional response to a serious and specific threat." Reports said that these militias were becoming more sophisticated and capable of carrying out large-scale attacks with remote-controlled drones on U.S. troops in Iraq.
The BBC, citing the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported that five militia fighters were killed in the strikes. The Wall Street Journal, citing a news agency in Iraq that supports the Iranian-allied militias, reported that four of those killed were members of paramilitaries. Sana, the Syrian state news agency, reported that a child was also killed and three other people were injured.
