The United States conducted airstrikes against two facilities used by Iran and Iranian-supported proxies in Iraq on Wednesday morning local time.
This is the fourth time the U.S. military has carried out planned strikes against Iranian-linked targets in Iraq and Syria, where U.S. troops have come under attack more than 60 times in the last month by Tehran proxies.
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“On the morning of November 22 in Iraq, U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) forces conducted discrete, precision strikes against two facilities in Iraq,” U.S. Central Command said in a statement. “The strikes were in direct response to the attacks against U.S. and Coalition forces by Iran and Iran-backed groups, including the one in Iraq on November 21, which involved use of close-range ballistic missiles.”
These strikes came in response to a recent attack where proxy forces launched a close-range ballistic missile at the Al-Asad Air Base, injuring eight people, CENTCOM said in a statement at the time. Immediately after the attack, a U.S. AC-130 gunship fired at a vehicle Department of Defense officials said was carrying militia members, killing “several.”
The gunship fired on the vehicle because it determined those inside were responsible for launching the close-range ballistic missiles.
“The militants were targeted because the AC-130 was able to determine the point of origin from where the close-range ballistic missile was being fired upon — or fired to the base,” Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters. “So they were able to take action cause they saw the militants, they were able to keep an eye on the movement of these militants as they moved into their vehicles, and that’s why they were able to respond.”
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U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria, who are in the region to prevent the regrowth of ISIS, have increasingly come under attack by these proxies over the last month.
There have been about 66 attacks against troops from Iranian-backed proxies since Oct. 17, and they have resulted in more than 60 U.S. troops reporting injuries, at least 25 of whom had traumatic brain injuries, though that number does not include the injuries incurred in the ballistic missile attack.
