U.S. media reports, citing the Pentagon, say the United States conducted a military airstrike in eastern Syria along the border with Iraq Thursday evening targeting Iranian-backed militias in retaliation for a recent rocket strike in Erbil in northern Iraq that left several Americans injured.
The airstrike targeted structures in the eastern Syrian town of Al Bukamal that belong to two Iranian-backed militias that have launched rocket attacks in the past against American facilities in Iraq, including the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, according to a U.S. official.
"At President Biden's direction, U.S. military forces earlier this evening conducted airstrikes against infrastructure utilized by Iranian-backed militant groups in eastern Syria," John Kirby, Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement issued Thursday night, according to NPR. "These strikes were authorized in response to recent attacks against American and Coalition personnel in Iraq, and to ongoing threats to those personnel," Kirby continued. "Specifically, the strikes destroyed multiple facilities located at a border control point used by a number of Iranian-backed militant groups, including Kait'ib Hezbollah (KH) and Kait'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada (KSS)."
ABC News says another official described the airstrike as targeting a location through which both groups engaged in smuggling into Iraq.
The airstrikes that took place Thursday evening were reportedly in retaliation for a February 15 rocket attack against a U.S. base in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil that killed a coalition contractor and left several American contractors and a U.S. military service member wounded.
The decision to strike at a militia targets inside of Syria and not inside of Iraq was seen as a smart move by national security analysts, according to ABC News.
The Pentagon had not blamed Iranian-backed militias for the attack in Erbil even though forensic evidence recovered soon after the attack pointed to a connection to Iranian-backed militias that have conducted similar attacks in the past.
As Biden administration officials reportedly said the attack remained under investigation White House press secretary Jen Psaki said last week that the U.S. "reserves the right to respond in the time and manner of our choosing" to the attack.
Earlier on Thursday, the Kurdish Government in northern Iraq claimed that it had identified suspects in the attacks and had provided that information to the Iraqi government and the U.S. military in Baghdad.
