The United States announced Friday that it had “successfully” carried out retaliatory strikes targeting Iranian elite forces and pro-Iranian groups in Iraq and Syria, while Joe Biden warned that the strikes “will continue.”
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Earlier Friday, at a base in the northeastern United States, the US President attended the official return ceremony for the bodies of three American soldiers who were killed on Sunday in Jordan, in an attack that Washington attributed to groups supported by Iran.
Two hours after the morgue truck doors closed on the three coffins covered in the American flag, the US military moved in.
The White House said the operation took about thirty minutes and was “successful.”
The Pentagon said the operation mobilized numerous fighter aircraft, including long-range bombers, and targeted more than 85 sites.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights indicated that at least 18 pro-Iranian fighters were killed in eastern Syria.
Security sources also confirmed to Agence France-Presse the bombing of sites of armed factions loyal to Iran in western Iraq, especially in the Al-Qaim sector, located on the border with neighboring Syria.
In a statement, the military spokesman for the Iraqi Prime Minister, Muhammad Shea Al-Sudani, criticized these strikes, saying that they constitute a “violation of Iraqi sovereignty,” expressing his fear of “serious consequences for the security and stability of Iraq and the region.”
“Our response began today. It will continue on the schedule and in the places we decide,” Joe Biden said.
“The United States does not want conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world. But let those who want to harm us know this well: If you touch an American, we will strike back.”
The US executive authority had previously indicated that retaliatory actions would be multiple and spread over time, against different targets.
Joe Biden, who is campaigning for a second term, has come under intense pressure to respond to the killing of three American soldiers, who were killed in a drone strike in Jordan, near the Syrian border.
US forces stationed in Iraq and Syria have been subjected to numerous attacks by drones and missiles since mid-October.
The bodies of William Jerome Rivers, Kennedy, Ladon Sanders and Breonna Alexandria Moffett, soldiers from the US state of Georgia (south), were recovered one by one on Friday from a majestic military transport plane, at the Dover base (northeast).
Joe Biden remained motionless in the cold wind, his hand on his heart and his gaze fixed straight ahead, as the bodies passed by.
The 81-year-old Democrat was accompanied by his wife, Jill Biden, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Chief of Staff Charles Brown, and other dignitaries.
The meeting was also attended by the families of the three soldiers, away from the press.
The ceremony, which was organized to the millimeter, lasted about ten minutes, in complete silence, interrupted only by orders directed to the army.
In the same place, Joe and Jill Biden had already attended the operation to return the bodies of American soldiers who fell during an attack on Kabul airport on August 26, 2021, at the time of the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
