LONDON: At least 18 fighters linked to Iran have been killed in overnight US airstrikes in Syria, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
U.S. military officials did not give an estimated death toll, but said the airstrikes led to a causal link.
The US military launched airstrikes in Iraq and Syria on Friday against more than 85 targets linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and militias in retaliation for an attack in Jordan last weekend that killed three US soldiers.
The strikes, which included the use of B-1 long-range bombers flown from the US, are the first in a multi-stage response by President Joe Biden’s administration to an attack by Iran-backed militants, and more US military operations are expected. in the coming days.
Although the US strikes did not target locations inside Iran, they signal a further escalation of conflict in the Middle East from Israel’s more than three-month-old war with Palestinian Hamas in Gaza.
The US military said in a statement that the strikes hit targets including command and control centers, missile, missile and drone storage facilities, as well as logistics and ammunition supply chains.
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US forces struck more than 85 targets in seven locations, four in Syria and three in Iraq, the military said.
The attacks targeted the Quds Force – the IRGC’s foreign espionage and paramilitary arm, which heavily influences its allied militias across the Middle East, from Lebanon to Iraq and from Yemen to Syria.
Syrian state media said on Friday that “US aggression” at sites in its desert regions and on the Syria-Iraq border had resulted in a number of casualties and injuries.
The Iraqi military said the attacks were in the Iraqi border area and warned they could fuel instability in the region.
“These airstrikes constitute a violation of Iraqi sovereignty, undermine the efforts of the Iraqi government and pose a threat that could lead to dire consequences for Iraq and the region,” Iraqi military spokesman Yahya Rasool said in a statement.
