The United States said Friday it had “successfully” carried out retaliatory strikes targeting elite Iranian forces and pro-Iranian groups in Iraq and Syria, with Joe Biden warning they would “continue.”
The American president attended earlier Friday, on a base in the northeast of the United States, the solemn return of the bodies of three American soldiers killed Sunday in Jordan, an attack attributed by Washington to groups supported by Iran.
Two hours after the doors of the mortuary van closed on the three coffins covered with the American flag, the American army took action.
The operation lasted about thirty minutes and was “a success,” the White House said.
The Pentagon said the operation mobilized numerous combat aircraft, including long-range bombers, targeting more than 85 sites.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH) indicated that at least 18 pro-Iranian fighters had been killed in eastern Syria.
Security sources also confirmed to AFP bombings of positions of pro-Iran armed groups in western Iraq, particularly in the Al-Qaim sector located on the border with neighboring Syria.
These strikes constitute a “violation of Iraqi sovereignty,” criticized a military spokesperson for Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Chia al-Soudani in a statement, saying he feared “disastrous consequences for the security and stability of Iraq and of the region”.
“Our response began today. It will continue according to the schedule and in the places that 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 respond,” the American president further indicated in a press release.
The American executive had already indicated previously that the reprisals would be multiple and spread over time, against different targets.
Joe Biden, campaigning for a second term, was under intense pressure to respond to the death of three American soldiers, killed by a drone strike in Jordan, near the Syrian border.
American forces stationed in Iraq and Syria have suffered numerous drone and rocket attacks since mid-October.
The bodies of William Jerome Rivers, Kennedy, Ladon Sanders and Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, soldiers from the American state of Georgia (south) were taken out one by one on Friday from an imposing military transport plane, on the Dover base (north -East).
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 VIPs.
The families of the three soldiers, away from the press, were also present.
The ceremony, regulated to the millimeter, lasted around ten minutes, in total silence only interrupted by orders intended for the military.
Joe and Jill Biden had already, in the same place, attended the repatriation of the bodies of American soldiers who fell during an attack at Kabul airport on August 26, 2021, at the time of the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
