The United States carried out a new round of airstrikes on Tuesday in Iraq, likely killing militants and destroying three facilities used by Iranian proxies targeting American and coalition troops, US officials said.
The American strikes were in retaliation for a series of attacks, including a drone attack hours earlier on members of Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated groups at the Erbil air base in Iraq, according to Adrienne Watson , a spokesman for the National Security Council. The drone attack injured three American service members, one of them critically, he said.
“My prayers are with the brave Americans who were wounded,” Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said in a statement.
The latest strikes targeted facilities used by Kataib Hezbollah, an Iraqi militia group considered a proxy of Iran. The United States blames Iran and militias aligned with it for what have become almost daily rocket and drone attacks against US forces in Iraq and Syria. The Biden administration has sought to calibrate retaliatory airstrikes to ultimately contain such groups while avoiding a wider war.
After Mr. Biden was briefed on the attack in Erbil on Christmas morning, he directed the Defense Department to prepare response options, White House officials said. Later, the president authorized the strikes which were conducted around 8:45 pm Eastern.
Mr. Biden singled out Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated facilities used to launch unmanned aerial drone attacks, the officials said.
Last month, the United States struck an operations center and a command-and-control node south of Baghdad used by Kataib Hezbollah. The group’s political wing is part of Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s coalition.
Since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, Iran-backed groups in Iraq, Syria and Yemen have launched a series of attacks on American troops and bases and on commercial ships passing through in the Red Sea. The Biden administration has retaliated against militants in Iraq and Syria, but has so far avoided hitting Houthi militants in Yemen who are targeting traffic in the Red Sea.
In a statement, the US Central Command said that early assessments indicated that the latest US airstrikes in Iraq destroyed targeted facilities and likely killed some militants. The statement said there were no indications of civilian casualties.
“These strikes are intended to hold accountable those elements directly responsible for attacks on coalition forces in Iraq and Syria and degrade their ability to continue attacks,” said Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla of the US Central Command in the statement. “We will always protect our forces.”
