New US administration's first military action

Israel said very pleased with US strikes in Syria: ‘Biden is not Obama’

Officials tell Walla News they see attacks on Iran-backed militia base as a positive signal about new administration’s posture toward Tehran, say US gave Israel advance notice

Two US Air Force F-22 Raptors fly over Syria, February 2, 2018, while supporting Operation Inherent Resolve. (US Air National Guard/Staff Sgt. Colton Elliott)
Illustrative: Two US Air Force F-22 Raptors fly over Syria, February 2, 2018 (US Air National Guard/Staff Sgt. Colton Elliott)

Israel is highly pleased with Thursday night’s US airstrikes against an Iranian-backed militia base on the Syrian-Iraqi border, Israeli officials told Walla News Friday.

Officials told Walla they see the strikes as a positive signal about the new administration’s posture toward Iran, and believe it will send a message to Tehran that it must restrain itself and its proxies in the region.

They said they had been concerned by growing Iranian provocations in the region, often through its proxies, and had shared this concern with the Americans.

“The Iranians didn’t realize that [US President Joe] Biden is not [Barack] Obama, and that if they will continue down this road of miscalculation they will eventually get hit,” an Israeli official told Walla.

The report added that Washington had notified Israel in advance of the airstrikes. The notice was a routine update that occurs whenever US operations may affect Israel and vice versa.

In the first military action undertaken by the Biden administration, the US launched airstrikes in Syria targeting facilities near the Iraqi border used by Iranian-backed militia groups. The Pentagon said the strikes were retaliation for a rocket attack in Iraq earlier this month that killed one civilian contractor and wounded a US service member and other coalition troops.

The Biden administration had emphasized its intent to put more focus on the challenges posed by China, even as Mideast threats persist. Biden’s decision to attack in Syria did not appear to signal an intention to widen US military involvement in the region but rather to demonstrate a will to defend US troops in Iraq.

“I’m confident in the target that we went after, we know what we hit,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters flying with him from California to Washington. Speaking shortly after the airstrikes, he added, “We’re confident that that target was being used by the same Shia militants that conducted the strikes,” referring to a February 15 rocket attack in northern Iraq that killed one civilian contractor and wounded a US service member and other coalition personnel.

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.”

Then-Secretary of Defense nominee Lloyd Austin speaks during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, January 19, 2021. (Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool via AP)

Earlier, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the US action was a “proportionate military response” taken together with diplomatic measures, including consultation with coalition partners.

“The operation sends an unambiguous message: President Biden will act to protect American and coalition personnel,” Kirby said. “At the same time, we have acted in a deliberate manner that aims to deescalate the overall situation in eastern Syria and Iraq.”

Kirby said the US airstrikes “destroyed multiple facilities at a border control point used by a number of Iranian-backed militant groups,” including Kataib Hezbollah and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada. The US has blamed Kataib Hezbollah for numerous attacks targeting US personnel and interests in Iraq in the past.

Further details were not immediately available.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that 22 people were killed after the strike hit three trucks loaded with munitions coming from Iraq near the Syrian city of Bukamal. The British-based war monitor has regularly been accused by Syrian war analysts of inflating casualty numbers, as well as inventing them wholesale.

The group said all the dead were from Iraq’s state-sponsored Hashed al-Shaabi force, the umbrella group over many small militias that have ties to Iran.

Biden administration officials condemned the February 15 rocket attack near the city of Irbil in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish-run region, but as recently as this week officials indicated they had not determined for certain who carried it out. Officials have noted that in the past, Iranian-backed Shiite militia groups have been responsible for numerous rocket attacks that targeted US personnel or facilities in Iraq.

Kirby had said Tuesday that Iraq is in charge of investigating the February 15 attack.

“Right now, we’re not able to give you a certain attribution as to who was behind these attacks, what groups, and I’m not going to get into the tactical details of every bit of weaponry used here,” Kirby said. “Let’s let the investigations complete and conclude, and then when we have more to say, we will.”

A little-known Shiite militant group calling itself Saraya Awliya al-Dam, Arabic for Guardians of Blood Brigade, claimed responsibility for the February 15 attack. A week later, a rocket attack in Baghdad’s Green Zone appeared to target the US  Embassy compound, but no one was hurt.

Iran this week said it has no links to the Guardians of Blood Brigade.

Worshipers in Iran chant slogans during Friday prayers ceremony by a banner showing slain Iranian Revolutionary Guard general Qassem Soleimani, left, and Iraqi Shiite senior militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who were killed in Iraq in a US drone attack on January 3, and a banner which reads in Persian: ‘Death To America,’ at Imam Khomeini Grand Mosque in Tehran, Iran, January 17, 2020. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

The frequency of attacks by Shiite militia groups against US targets in Iraq diminished late last year ahead of President Joe Biden’s inauguration, though now Iran is pressing America to return to Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal. The US under the previous Trump administration blamed Iran-backed groups for carrying out the attacks. Tensions soared after a Washington-directed drone strike that killed top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani and powerful Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis last year.

Trump had said the death of a US contractor would be a red line and provoke US escalation in Iraq. The December 2019 killing of a US civilian contractor in a rocket attack in Kirkuk sparked a tit-for-tat fight on Iraqi soil that brought the country to the brink of a proxy war.

US forces have been significantly reduced in Iraq to 2,500 personnel and no longer partake in combat missions with Iraqi forces in ongoing operations against the Islamic State group.

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