Iran condemns US strikes that kill 39 in Iraq and Syria
US WARPLANES have launched dozens of devastating air strikes against Iran-backed terrorists in Iraq and Syria.
Iran last night warned US president Joe Biden he had made a ‘strategic mistake’ after fighter jets struck 85 targets in seven sites in Iraq and Syria.
It came in retaliation to the killing of three American soldiers at a base in Jordan by Iran-backed militias last week. Mr Biden warned the US response will continue ‘at times and places of our choosing’.
He said: ‘The United States does not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world. But let all those who might seek to do us harm know this: If you harm an American, we will respond.’
Friday’s strikes left at least 39 dead and dozens wounded.
Last night, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Nasser Kanaani, called the strikes ‘another adventurous and strategic mistake by the United States and that will result only in increased tension and instability in the region.’
An Iraqi government official warned that the air raids had put the Middle East ‘on the brink of an abyss’.
The Mail on Sunday understands that 10 US tanker planes flew on a mission from England to refuel B-1 bombers over the Atlantic as they made their way to the Middle East to carry out the strikes.
The Pentagon said that the seven facilities it targeted were connected to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, the unit that controls militant and terrorist groups abroad in countries such as Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
Targets included command and control centres, intelligence facilities and weapons storage facilities used by the militias.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an Iran-backed terror group, hit back yesterday with an attack on US troops at a base in the city of Irbil, but there were no immediate reports of injuries.
Another Iran-backed terrorist group announced a halt in attacks on US troops.