Pentagon threatens retaliatory strike after attack in Iraq kills US troops

‘You don’t get to shoot at our bases and kill and wound Americans and get away with it,’ says Defense Secretary Mark Esper

WASHINGTON (AP) — US defense leaders on Thursday threatened a retaliatory strike against an Iranian-backed Shia militia in Iraq, saying they know who launched the rockets in Iraq that killed and wounded US and coalition troops and the attackers will be held accountable.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper told reporters at the Pentagon that US President Donald Trump on Wednesday night gave him the authority to do what he needs to do. It signaled a renewed spike in tensions with Iran and its proxy groups in Iraq.

“We’re going to take this one step at a time, but we’ve got to hold the perpetrators accountable,” Esper said. “You don’t get to shoot at our bases and kill and wound Americans and get away with it.”

At the White House, Trump said the attackers were a rebel group that “mostly likely looked like it could be backed by Iran. And we’ll see what the response is.”

This photo released by the government-affiliated Media Security Cell on Thursday, March 12, 2020, shows a rocket-rigged truck launcher after a rocket attack on Camp Taji, a few miles north of Baghdad, in Rashidiya, Iraq. Iraq’s military on Thursday said it opened an investigation into the rocket attack that hours earlier killed three servicemen, including two Americans, at an Iraqi base housing coalition forces that has been used as a training base for a number of years. (Media Security Cell via AP)

Esper and Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declined to provide any more information about any impending US retaliation for the attack at Camp Taji north of Baghdad. But Esper said all options are on the table.

Asked if any counterattack could include a strike inside Iran, Esper said, “We are focused on the group that we believe perpetrated this in Iraq.”

Two US troops and one British service member were killed and 14 other personnel at the base were wounded when 18 rockets hit the base on Wednesday.

US officials have not publicly said what group they believe launched the rocket attack, but Kataib Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Shia militia group, is likely.

US Army soldiers stand outside their armored vehicle on a joint base with Iraqi army south of Mosul, Iraq, February 23, 2017. (Khalid Mohammed/AP/File)

Kataib Hezbollah was responsible for a late December rocket attack on a military base in Kirkuk that killed a US contractor, prompting American military strikes in response.

That in turn led to protests at the US Embassy in Baghdad. They were followed January 3 by a US airstrike that killed Iran’s most powerful military officer, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a leader of the Iran-backed militias in Iraq, of which Kataib Hezbollah is a member. In response to the Soleimani killing, Iran launched a massive ballistic missile attack on January 8 at the al-Asad air base in Iraq that resulted in injuries to more than 100 American troops.