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US strikes Iran-linked sites in Syria amid fears
Israel-Hamas war could escalate
Defence secretary says strikes were in response to
attacks on US troops, and warns others against action that would trigger
‘broader regional conflict’
Jason Burke
and Helen Livingstone
Fri 27 Oct
2023 00.56 EDT
The US
military has launched airstrikes on two locations in eastern Syria linked to
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), signalling a new willingness in
Washington to engage its forces directly in the crisis in the Middle East.
The
strikes, which the Pentagon said hit a weapons storage facility and an
ammunition storage facility used by the IRGC and militia it backs, came as
fears grow that the war between Israel and Hamas could escalate into a regional
conflict.
US
facilities in Iraq and Syria have been hit by a series of low-level attacks by
drones and rockets over the past 10 days that have been claimed by Iran-backed
militia.
The attacks
have injured at least 24 US servicemen and the death of one civilian
contractor. There were three such attacks on Thursday, striking two US bases in
Syria and one in western Iraq.
Experts
told the Guardian this week there was “a limit to patience” in Washington and
that the administration of President Joe Biden would probably seek to deter
with force any further attacks despite the risk of escalation.
Biden has
already ordered two aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean and sent new
anti-missile units with hundreds of troops to protect US bases and allies in
the region.
The US
retaliatory strikes were carried out by two F-16 fighter jets at about 4.30am
on Friday near Abu Kamal, a Syrian town on the border with Iraq where the US
has a major base that has been the target of several recent attacks by
Iran-backed militia. It was unclear if Iranian nationals were killed.
The defence
secretary, Lloyd Austin, described “self-defence strikes” and said Biden had
directed the tailored strikes “to make clear that the United States will not
tolerate such attacks and will defend itself, its personnel, and its
interests”.
US
officials said they did not coordinate the strikes with Israel, and Austin said
the operation was separate and distinct from Israel’s war against Hamas.
He added:
“We continue to urge all state and non-state entities not to take action that
would escalate into a broader regional conflict.”
A week ago,
a US warship intercepted missiles fired by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen,
possibly at Israel.
The recent
attacks on the US have been claimed by groups either directly controlled by
Tehran or sharing the ideology of other groups fighting Israel. On Thursday, a
US base at Kharab al-Jir in Syria was attacked for the second time in two days,
and a base in western Iraq was also hit.
Iran’s
foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, said at the UN on Thursday that if
Israel’s offensive against Hamas did not stop, the US would “not be spared from
this fire”.
Charles
Lister, the director of the Syria and countering terrorism and extremism
programmes at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said the attacks showed
Iran had an extensive network of well-armed, aggressive and well-coordinated
proxies across the region, “which it has established for exactly this
scenario”.
He added:
“They are currently testing redlines but not pushing too hard. They are putting
the onus on the US to respond.”
The US is
in a delicate situation. It wants to hit Iranian-backed groups suspected of
targeting the US as strongly as possible to deter future aggression, while also
trying to avoid inflaming the region and provoking a wider conflict.
One
Iraq-based and Iran-supported group, believed to be a front for the
long-established Kateb Hezbollah, last week issued a statement threatening
attacks on US military bases in the UAE and Kuwait. Paramilitaries from militia
in Syria that are controlled by Iran have been deployed close to the Golan
Heights, in a further threatening move.
On
Wednesday, leading officials of the three principal Islamist extremist groups
at war with Israel met in Beirut to discuss the conflict.
After the
meeting in Lebanon, a brief statement said Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan
Nasrallah, had agreed with Hamas’s Saleh al-Arouri and Palestine Islamic
Jihad’s leader, Ziad al-Nakhleh, that the three – along with other Iran-backed
militants – wanted to achieve “a real victory for the resistance in Gaza and
Palestine” and halt Israel’s “treacherous and brutal aggression against our
oppressed and steadfast people in Gaza and the West Bank”.
Tobias
Borck, a senior research fellow in Middle East security studies at London’s
Royal United Services Institute, said Iran was “literally playing with fire”.
“What we
are seeing is the next level out from the Gazan war. This is all carefully
calibrated to show solidarity. Iran is saying: we see the aircraft carriers but
we are not scared and we can hurt you too. It is incredibly dangerous,” Borck
told the Guardian.
Earlier on
Thursday, Biden also sent a rare message to the Iranian supreme leader,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warning Tehran against targeting US personnel in the
Middle East, the White House said.
Governments
in the west and the Middle East are concerned about a wider regional conflict
developing if Israel continues its bombardment of Gaza or mounts a ground
invasion in response to the 7 October attack by Hamas.
On
Thursday, Israel said it was entering the “next stages of the war” after a
substantial but limited raid on Gaza, in what was described as a probing action
in preparation for a more sustained ground offensive.
Israel has
imposed a siege on the densely populated Gaza Strip after the Hamas attack on
Israeli communities 7 October and launched intense airstrikes that killed 1,400
people including children, and took more than 200 hostages, some of them
infants and older adults.
The
Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry said on Thursday that 7,028 Palestinians
had been killed in the retaliatory airstrikes, including 2,913 children.
Satellite
images released on Thursday by Maxar Technologies and Planet Labs show
buildings in wide areas of the coastal enclave reduced to rubble and grey ash
spread over the land.
Leaders of
the 27 EU member states unanimously called for “humanitarian corridors and
pauses” of the shelling in Gaza to allow in food, water and medical supplies.
The issue
of whether to have humanitarian pauses or ceasefire agreements in the Hamas-run
coastal enclave will come before the 193-member UN general assembly on Friday
in a draft resolution submitted by Arab states calling for a ceasefire.
Unlike in
the security council where resolutions on Gaza aid failed this week, no country
holds a veto in the general assembly. Resolutions are non-binding, but carry
political weight.
Associated
Press and Reuters contributed to this report
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