WASHINGTON – The United States carried out an air strike on Thursday in eastern Syria against structures belonging to what the Pentagon said were Iran-backed militias responsible for recent attacks against Americans and allies in Iraq.
The attacks were authorized by President Biden in response to the recent attacks in Iraq and continuing threats to Americans and coalition personnel, said Pentagon press secretary John Kirby, who spoke with reporters traveling with Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III in California.
A rocket attack at the airport in the city of Erbil in northern Iraq this month killed one civilian contractor in the American-led military coalition and wounded six others, including an American military and four American contractors.
American officials said the military response was essentially a small demonstration attack: a bomb dropped on a small cluster of buildings on the border between Syria and Iraq, used for the transit of militiamen and armaments inside and outside the country.
The attack was on the border with Syria to prevent a diplomatic reaction to the Iraqi government. The Pentagon offered several larger groups of targets, but Biden approved the smaller option, American officials said.
The American air strikes on Thursday “specifically destroyed several facilities located at a border control point used by several Iranian-backed militia soldiers, including Kataib Hezbollah and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada,” said Kirby.
“This proportional military response was conducted in conjunction with diplomatic measures, including consultations with coalition partners,” said Kirby. “The operation sends an unequivocal message: President Biden will act to protect American and coalition personnel.”
Kirby said the American retaliation was intended to punish the perpetrators of the rocket attack, but not to increase hostilities with Iran, with which the Biden government sought to renew negotiations on a nuclear deal that President Donald J. Trump has shelved. .
“We have acted deliberately in order to slow the general situation in eastern Syria and Iraq,” said Kirby.
Biden authorized the attacks on Thursday morning, when his secretary of defense was at a hotel in San Diego, preparing to visit the aircraft carrier Nimitz, which was returning home from the Persian Gulf.
Mr. Austin expressed confidence that the targeted facilities were used by militia groups responsible for the attacks. Speaking to reporters aboard his plane on Thursday night, he said the Biden government was “deliberate” in its approach.
“We allow and encourage Iraqis to investigate and develop intelligence and it was very helpful in refining the target,” he said.
The government has given a more measured response to the rocket gunfire in Erbil than the Trump campaign against Iran and the previous actions of its representatives in Iraq – one that has often caught the Iraqi government in the crossfire.
Government officials have said, since the attack on Erbil, that the United States would react at the time and place of its choice.
Still, the deliberation of the new government’s approach raised questions in both Washington and Baghdad about where Biden’s red lines lie when it comes to responding to Iranian-backed militia attacks targeting Americans in Iraq.
Few details of the attack or damage were released on Thursday night.