Biden’s First Military Attack on Militias in Syria Should Wake Up Iran

The U.S. carried out air strikes in eastern Syria overnight on sites connected to Iranian-backed groups believed to be involved in recent attacks in Iraq, the first overt use of military force under President Joe Biden.

The assault came after a series of rocket attacks in recent days on facilities in Iraq used by the United States, including one that killed a contractor working with the U.S.-led coalition in the country.

At least 22 Iraqi militants allied with Iran were killed and three ammunition trucks were destroyed in the attack, according to the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which gathers information from a network of activists on the ground in Syria.

Read More: How Iran Pursues Its Interests Via Proxies, Partners: QuickTake

There was no immediate response from the Syrian or Iraqi governments.

“These strikes were authorized in response to recent attacks against American and coalition personnel in Iraq, and to ongoing threats to those personnel,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in a statement Thursday night. “The strikes destroyed multiple facilities located at a border control point used by a number of Iranian-backed militant groups, including Kait’ib Hezbollah and Kait’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada.”

At about 2 a.m. local time, a single F-15 jet fired on a cluster of buildings at a location believed to be a transit point for smuggling militia members into Iraq, according to a U.S. official. A handful of people were expected to be at the location, the official said.

After a decade of civil war, Syria’s military is in little position to respond directly to a U.S. attack. The country faced two attacks by the U.S. military during former President Donald Trump’s tenure, both over President Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons in the conflict.

By hitting a facility in Syria, the U.S. avoids raising tensions that would come with a direct strike on Iran, which the Biden administration is seeking to persuade to return to the 2015 nuclear deal Trump abanonded three years ago. It also avoids a U.S. strike inside Iraq, which would have caused embarrassment for the fragile U.S.-allied government in Baghdad.

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

The U.S. launched the strike one day after Biden spoke with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi. The two leaders “discussed the recent rocket attacks against Iraqi and coalition personnel and agreed that those responsible for such attacks must be held fully to account,” the White House said Wednesday in a statement.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel

Bloomberg Quicktake brings you live global news and original shows spanning business, technology, politics and culture. Make sense of the stories changing your business and your world.

To watch complete coverage on Bloomberg Quicktake 24/7, visit  or watch on Apple TV, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, Fire TV and Android TV on the Bloomberg app.

Connect with us on…

Breaking News on YouTube