US attacks facilities in Syria linked to Iran, Pentagon says | Israel-Palestine conflict News

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The White Home earlier warned it might reply to assaults on its forces in Iraq and Syria at ‘time of our selecting’.

America has attacked two services in Syria utilized by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iran-backed teams, the Pentagon has mentioned, following a sequence of assaults towards US forces in Iraq and Syria.

The strikes got here after President Joe Biden’s administration pledged to reply to assaults on US personnel that Washington has blamed on armed teams backed by Iran.

“America doesn’t search battle and has no intention nor need to have interaction in additional hostilities, however these Iranian-backed assaults towards US forces are unacceptable and should cease,” US Protection Secretary Lloyd Austin mentioned in an announcement on Thursday.

“Iran needs to cover its hand and deny its function in these assaults towards our forces. We won’t allow them to. If assaults by Iran’s proxies towards US forces proceed, we won’t hesitate to take additional crucial measures to guard our individuals.”

Austin mentioned the “narrowly-tailored strikes” had been in self-defence and weren’t linked to the Israel-Hamas conflict.

“They’re separate and distinct from the continuing battle between Israel and Hamas, and don’t represent a shift in our strategy to the Israel-Hamas battle,” he mentioned.

White Home Nationwide Safety Council spokesman had earlier warned that Washington would reply to the assaults at a “time of our selecting and a way of our selecting”.

Kirby’s feedback got here because the US Division of Protection mentioned on Thursday that US and allied forces in Iraq and Syria had been attacked a minimum of 16 instances this month by “Iranian-backed militia teams”.

Reported assaults on US forces within the area have spiked for the reason that outbreak of the Israel-Hamas conflict, which started earlier this month when the Palestinian group launched an unprecedented assault on Israel that Israeli officers say killed greater than 1,400 individuals.

Palestinian authorities say greater than 7,000 individuals have been killed in Israeli air strikes on Gaza carried out in response to Hamas’s October 7 assaults.

On Wednesday, Biden mentioned he had straight warned Iranian Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei towards concentrating on US troops within the Center East.

“My warning to the ayatollah was that in the event that they proceed to maneuver towards these troops, we are going to reply, and he needs to be ready,” Biden instructed reporters, including it has “nothing to do” with Israel.

Washington and Tehran should not have formal diplomatic relations, and Biden didn’t say how the message was communicated.

Mohammad Jamshidi, an aide to Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, disputed Biden’s account in a remark posted on social media.

“The US messages had been neither directed to the chief of the Islamic Revolution nor had been they something however requests from the Iranian facet,” he mentioned.

“If Biden thinks he has warned Iran, he ought to ask his workforce to indicate him the textual content of the messages.”

US officers are involved about the potential of preventing between Israel and Hamas escalating right into a broader regional battle.

Iran backs each Hamas, which governs Gaza, and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, which Israel has clashed with in skirmishes alongside the Israel-Lebanon border.

On Thursday, Iran’s International Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian mentioned on the United Nations that the US would “not be spared from this fireplace” if Israel’s bombardment of Gaza didn’t finish.

“I say frankly to the American statesmen, who are actually managing the genocide in Palestine, that we don’t welcome [an] growth of the conflict within the area,” Amir-Abdollahian mentioned. “But when the genocide in Gaza continues, they won’t be spared from this fireplace.”