The United States Army launched a series of weapons this Friday in Iraq and Syria. military attacks against pro-Iranian militia positions and the Revolutionary Guard in retaliation for the attack on one of its bases in Jordan on Sunday, in which three American soldiers were killed and more than 40 were injured.
President Joe Biden, who hours before had come to receive the bodies of the three soldiers upon their arrival at the Dover base, in Delaware, and who has also spoken with the families of the three deceased, has issued a statement confirming the operation , which has authorized. “Our response has begun today. It will continue at the time and places we decide”wrote the Democrat, whose administration had been announcing for days that it would give a “phased response” to the weekend attack.
In his statement Biden has also assured that “The US does not seek a conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else” but added: “Those who seek to harm us should know this: if you harm an American, we will respond.”
Escalation and containment
This Friday’s operation represents a escalation of Washington’s involvement in this regional conflict which has been intensifying and expanding since Israel began an aggressive military operation in Gaza in response to the Hamas attack in Israel on October 7, and is already extending to Lebanon and Yemen, where the US has attacked pro-Iran Houthi militias that They have attacked commercial ships in the Red Sea.
By attacking targets in Iraq and Syria and not Iran, the possibility of a direct military confrontation between Washington and Tehran that neither party seeks. This same week, senior Iranian officials insisted that they are not seeking war with the United States and that They will only respond if Iran is attacked.
The US, for its part, has stated that in addition to the staggered military operation that could last for days, it will use Economic sanctions but also diplomatic efforts to try to protect US forces without entering into the feared direct confrontation with Tehran.
85 objectives
The US Central Command has confirmed the operation in a statement and has reported that in the air attacks, in which bombers that have flown from the US have participated, more than 85 targets have been hit. both the militias and the Quds forces of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
This statement details that more than 125 precision ammunition and cites among the objectives achieved command and operations control centers, intelligence centers, rockets and missiles, drone warehouses and logistics and ammunition storage facilities.
Election year
Biden, in the middle of an election year, does not want to trigger a large-scale regional conflict, although he was under great pressure from his Republican adversaries to respond firmly after the drone attack against a US logistics base. “It is possible that we will see a gradual response, not a single action, but potentially multiple actions,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby had indicated last Wednesday.
Iran has denied having originated the attack, which has caused the first deaths of American soldiers since the start of the war between Hamas and Israel on October 7, a conflict where the Israeli response has already left more than 26,000 dead in Gaza.
