American forces have struck at an Iranian-backed militia in Syria that launched rocket attacks against U.S. bases in Iraq, Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby confirmed when he spoke with reporters traveling with Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin.
Just 36 days into his presidency, this is the first known military action by President Biden.
Reportedly, multiple facilities were struck by American F15 fighter jets that targeted Iraqi border-based Shia militia groups, Kait’ib Hezbollah and Kait’ib Sayyid al Shuhada.
“At President Joe Biden’s direction, U.S. military forces, earlier this evening, launched airstrikes against infrastructure utilized by Iranian-backed militant groups in Eastern Syria. These strikes were authorized in response to recent attacks against U.S. and coalition personnel in Iraq, and to on-going threats to those personnel”, Kirby said.
“There’s not much more that I’ll be able to add at this point other than the fact that we’re confident in the target we went after, we know what we hit,” Austin said. “We’re confident that the target was being used by the same Shia militia that conducted the strikes.”
“We are very deliberative in our approach as you would expect us to be,” Austin continued. “We allowed and encouraged the Iraqis to investigate and develop intelligence for us, and that was very helpful to us in refining the target.”
Austin said he recommended the action to Biden.
“We said a number of times that we will respond on our timeline,” Austin said. “We wanted to be sure of the connectivity and we wanted to be sure that we had the right targets.”
“Let me say that I am very proud of the men and women in our force that carried out the strike. As you would expect, they performed in a very professional manner, and we are grateful for their service,” Austin said.
According to Fox News, the airstrike was timed to avoid large-scale casualties and targeted a command hub. The extent of the damage and casualties hit will be known after a bomb assessment is complete.