Iran-Backed Militias Fire Rockets in New Attack Aimed at U.S. Forces
U.S. troops in northeast Syria came under rocket fire Monday night after Iran-backed militias vowed revenge for U.S. airstrikes earlier that day in Iraq and Syria, a sign that fighting may be evolving into sustained confrontation.
A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, Col. Wayne Marotto, said that multiple rockets had been fired at U.S. troops and that American forces responded by firing artillery at the rocket launching positions. There were no U.S. injuries, he added.
The rocket attack, which a pro-militia news agency said had occurred near Syria’s al-Omar oil field, came as the Biden administration warned Monday that it stood ready to defend U.S. troops.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that President Biden is “fully prepared to act and act appropriately and deliberately to protect U.S. interests,” if Iran-backed militia continued to attack American forces in the region.
The U.S. airstrikes, which Iran-backed militia groups said killed four of their members, highlight the challenge facing the Biden administration as it attempts to deter attacks without provoking an escalation.
“We are fully prepared…to respond and take revenge,” said Ahmed al-Maksusi, a commander of one of the militias that was hit early Monday, according to SITE Intelligence Group, an organization that tracks extremist propaganda.
The prospect of deeper hostilities has raised concerns among some lawmakers who said the White House should consult more fully with the Congress.
President Biden on Monday said Article II of the Constitution gave him the authority to take action to defend U.S. troops, adding that even lawmakers “who are reluctant to acknowledge that have acknowledged that’s the case.”
The Pentagon has said that the airstrikes, which targeted two militia installations in Syria and one in Iraq, came in response to militia drone attacks that presented a growing danger to U.S. troops in Iraq.
The Iraqi site that was struck, a U.S. official said, was a base from which drones were operated.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D., Conn.) said that the possibility that fighting might escalate points to the need for a greater congressional role.
“The pace of activity directed at U.S. forces and the repeated retaliatory strikes against Iranian proxy forces are starting to look like what would qualify as a pattern of hostilities under the War Powers Act,” he said in a statement.
That act requires the president to consult with the Congress before deploying U.S. troops in a hostile situation and says that the use of force must be ended after 60 to 90 days, if the Congress doesn’t approve.
Sen. Bob Menendez, the New Jersey Democrat who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he would be seeking more information from the administration about the threats U.S. forces face and details on legal authority.
While the U.S. military hasn’t conclusively identified who carried out the rocket attack Monday night, an American official said it appeared to be the work of an Iranian-backed militia group. The U.S. forces near the al-Omar oil field are deployed at a complex the U.S. military has dubbed Green Village.
The airstrikes have also complicated Washington’s ties with Baghdad. A spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi criticized the airstrikes as “a blatant and unacceptable violation of Iraqi sovereignty and Iraqi national security.” Iraq’s military spokesman also issued a rare condemnation of the strikes.
The Monday airstrike was the first time that the U.S. has bombed an installation in Iraq territory since Mr. Kadhimi became prime minister in May 2020.
He is still scheduled to visit Washington in late July, according to Iraqi officials, and has benefited from U.S. political and military support, including for his country’s ongoing fight against remnants of Islamic State.
Sabreen, a news agency in Iraq that supports the militias, said that four militia members belonging to a paramilitary group known as Brigade 14 were killed on a military base in Iraq’s Anbar province. The agency published their names and photos, including of three wearing military-style uniforms.
Two U.S. officials said that they were killed on the Syrian side of the border and that the militia was trying to hide the fact that they were operating in Syria.
The U.S. military has long had fraught relations with Iran-based militias. During the U.S. war in Iraq, hundreds of U.S. troops were killed by Shiite-militias backed by Iran, including with powerful improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.
U.S. troops left Iraq in 2011 but returned to train and advise the Iraqi military after Islamic State captured Mosul in 2014. For years, the U.S. and the Shiite militias maintained an uneasy truce, as they focused on their common Islamic State adversary.
During the Trump administration fighting flared up again. After a U.S. contractor was killed in a 2019 rocket attack at an Iraqi military base near Kirkuk, U.S. warplanes struck three of Kata’ib Hezbollah’s locations in Iraq and two in Syria. It also carried out airstrikes on militia rocket facilities in Iraq in March 2020.
The militias vowed to drive U.S. forces out of the country after President Trump ordered an airstrike that killed senior Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and top Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes in January 2020.
Since April, Iranian-backed militias have launched at least five drone attacks in Iraq on U.S. forces, who are in the country to train and mentor Iraqi troops who are fighting remnants of Islamic State.
Some experts say the full extent of the militia activities is even higher. A tabulation by Michael Knights of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy lists 24 rocket and missile attacks against U.S. targets in Iraq since Mr. Biden took office.
The Monday airstrikes ordered by Mr. Biden hit targets that the Pentagon said were linked to the drone attack and which were used by Iran-backed groups: Kata’ib Hezbollah and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada.
The latest U.S. strike was more extensive than a limited attack Mr. Biden ordered in February. That one hit only the Syrian side of the border in an area where Iranian-allied groups have been known to transport fighters and weapons.
Following the early Monday U.S. airstrikes, Iraqi officials affiliated with the militias, known collectively as the Popular Mobilization Forces, said they would intensify pressure on the U.S.
On Saturday, militia groups staged a military parade, attended by Iraq’s prime minister, at a base in the east of the country, showing off tanks, missile launchers and armed drones.
