At least 16 people have been killed in US attacks in Iraq, the government said, condemning the “new aggression against” its sovereignty.
The dead included civilians and 25 people were wounded in the bombings that targeted civilian and security areas, a government spokesman said Saturday.
The United States warned of more retaliatory strikes after attacking Iran-linked targets in Iraq and Syria overnight in response to an attack that killed US soldiers in Jordan amid Israel's war on Gaza.
“This aggressive attack will bring security in Iraq and the region to the brink,” the Iraqi government said, denying Washington's claims of coordinating airstrikes with Baghdad as “false” and “aimed at misleading international public opinion.” “.
The presence of the US-led military coalition in the region “has become a reason to threaten security and stability in Iraq and a justification for involving Iraq in regional and international conflicts,” the statement read. office of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani.
The Syrian Defense Ministry criticized the “aggression of the US occupation forces”, which it said attempted to “weaken the capacity of the Syrian Arab army and its allies in the field of combating terrorism”, adding that the target areas They were the same. where the army fights against remnants of the armed group ISIL (ISIS).
Syrian state media reported several casualties following attacks in the country's desert region and in border areas with Iraq. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 18 Iran-aligned fighters were killed in the strikes in Syria, but it could not be independently verified.
The attacks did not take place within Iranian territory. Iran's Foreign Ministry on Saturday called them “another adventurous action and another strategic mistake by the US government that will have no result other than intensifying… instability in the region.”
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters that the goal of the “multi-level” attacks was to stop attacks by groups aligned with Iran and not start a war with Iran.
The Iranian ministry said tensions in the region “date back to the occupation by the Israeli regime and [its] military operations in Gaza and the genocide of the Palestinians with the unlimited support of the United States,” adding that stability will only return if “the root cause of the crisis” is resolved.
President Joe Biden said attacks “will continue at times and places of our choosing” as his chief diplomat, Antony Blinken, prepares to embark on his fifth regional tour since Oct. 7 starting Sunday, visiting Israel, the West Bank occupied, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. and Qatar.
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said it flew bombers from the United States and used more than 125 precision munitions to hit more than 85 targets that included command and control operations centers, intelligence centers, weapons storage and storage facilities. the supply chain of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. (IRGC) and armed groups backed by Tehran.
Iraqi security sources told Al Jazeera that six airstrikes targeted several locations in the country.
No Iranians are believed to have been killed.
Although Washington said all of its intended targets were supported by the IRGC's Quds Force command, no Iranian personnel are believed to have been killed.
It took almost a week for the United States to act after three of its soldiers were killed in a drone strike on the Torre 22 base near the Syria-Jordan border, and continued to leak information to the media before the attacks. nocturnal.
The attack on the US base had been claimed by the coalition of forces known as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which considers US troops “occupation forces” and has demanded an end to Israel's deadly war against Gaza.
Iran, which Washington suspects provided the weapons that attacked US soldiers at Tower 22 but did not order the attack, has maintained that members of the “resistance axis” it supports across the region act independently.
Al Jazeera's Mahmoud Abdelwahed reported from Baghdad on Saturday that the Iraqi resistance, which includes groups aligned with Iran, carried out missile attacks targeting the al-Tanf military base in Syria, which houses US personnel, as well as to the Ain military base. Al-Assad base in western Iraq.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which had announced the suspension of hostile operations against US troops this week, said it “attacked the US occupation base Harir in Erbil” in northern Iraq with an unspecified number of drones on Saturday.
He said in a statement that the attack comes to resist “American occupation forces” in Iraq and throughout the region, and to confront Israel's war on Gaza.
However, three security sources cited by Reuters news agency said no attack on the air base hosting US forces had been detected.
Gaza is “key” to stopping escalations
The Biden administration's actions sparked dissatisfied reactions from US politicians who demanded stronger and faster strikes, including direct strikes on Iranian soil, despite concerns that such a move would lead to all-out war.
Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the US House of Representatives, accused the president of “appeasing” Tehran after the attacks and said: “To promote peace, the United States must project strength.”
But the same American politicians refuse to mention the Gaza war, which has killed more than 27,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, as a key link in the chain of more than 150 attacks targeting American bases in Iraq and Syria since last October.
“I'm not surprised that there has been this retaliation by the United States,” HA Hellyer, a military analyst at the UK-based think tank Royal United Services Institute, told Al Jazeera, adding that if the United States wants to escalate and not going to war with Iran the key to that is Gaza.
Washington “has not applied any real leverage to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, which I think would really de-escalate tensions in the region and remove the fuel for this type of escalation that is likely to continue in the coming days.” and weeks and beyond,” she added.
