US president Joe Biden has ordered retaliatory strikes against Iranian-backed militia groups after three US service personnel were injured in a drone attack in northern Iraq.
National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said one of the US troops suffered critical injuries in the attack on Monday.
The Iranian-backed militia Kataib Hizbullah and affiliated groups, under an umbrella of Iranian-backed militants, claimed credit for the attack on Erbil Air Base.
According to US Central Command, the retaliatory strikes on the three sites on Tuesday “destroyed the targeted facilities and likely killed a number of Kataib Hizbullah militants”.
Iraqi officials said US strikes targeting militia sites early on Tuesday killed one militant and injured 18. They came at a time of heightened fears of a regional spillover in the Israel-Hamas war.
Iran announced Monday that an Israeli strike on the outskirts of the Syrian capital of Damascus killed one of its top generals, Razi Mousavi, who had been a close companion of General Qassem Soleimani, the former head of Iran’s elite Quds Force.
Mr Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike in Iraq in January 2020.
Iranian officials vowed revenge for the killing of Mr Mousavi but did not immediately launch a retaliatory strike. The militia attack on Monday in northern Iraq was launched before the strike in Syria that killed Mr Mousavi.
Mr Biden, who is spending Christmas at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, was briefed on the attack before ordering the Pentagon to prepare response options to the attack on an air base used by American troops in Irbil.
After defence secretary Lloyd Austin and the national security team presented him with options, the president directed strikes against three locations used by Kataib Hizbullah and affiliated groups.
Mr Austin said: “The President and I will not hesitate to take necessary action to defend the United States, our troops and our interests. There is no higher priority.
“While we do not seek to escalate conflict in the region, we are committed and fully prepared to take further necessary measures to protect our people and our facilities.”
Thousands of US troops are in Iraq training the country’s forces and combating remnants of the Islamic State group, as well as hundreds in Syria.
The latest attack on US troops follows months of escalating threats and actions against American forces in the region since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th, which sparked the devastating war in Gaza.
The US has blamed Iran, which has funded and trained Hamas, for the rising violence by a network of proxy groups across the region, including attacks by Yemen’s Houthis against commercial and military vessels thorough a critical shipping choke point in the Red Sea.
The clashes put the government of Iraqi prime minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani in a delicate position.
He came to power in 2022 with the backing of a coalition of Iranian-backed parties, some of which are associated with the same militias launching the attacks on US bases.
In a statement on Tuesday, Mr Sudani condemned both the militia attack in Irbil and the US response.
Attacks on “foreign diplomatic mission headquarters and sites hosting military advisors from friendly nations… infringe upon Iraq’s sovereignty and are deemed unacceptable under any circumstances”, the statement said.
However, it added that the retaliatory strikes by the US on “Iraqi military sites” — referring to the militia — “constitute a clear hostile act.”
Mr Sudani said some of those injured in the strikes were civilians.
