US air strike hits site on Syria border

AUS air strike has targeted facilities belonging to a powerful Iranian-backed Iraqi armed group in Syria. spokesman for the Kataeb Hezbollah militia said one of its militiamen was killed and several others were injured.

The official said the assault took place in an area along the border between the Syrian site of Boukamal and Qa’im in Iraq.

The Pentagon said the strikes served as retaliation for a rocket attack in Iraq earlier this month that killed one civilian contractor and wounded a US service member and other coalition troops.

US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said after the air strike on Thursday: “I’m confident in the target that we went after, we know what we hit.”

The strike was the first military action undertaken by Joe Biden’s US administration, which in its first weeks has emphasised its intent to put more focus on the challenges posed by China, even as threats persist in the Middle East.

Biden’s decision to launch an attack in Syria did not appear to signal an intention to widen US military involvement in the region, but rather to demonstrate a will to defend US troops in Iraq.

The US has in the past targeted facilities in Syria belonging to Kataeb Hezbollah, which it has blamed for numerous attacks targeting American personnel and interests in Iraq. The Iraqi Kataeb is separate from the Lebanese Hezbollah movement.

Austin was “confident” the US had hit back at the “the same Shia militants that conducted the strikes”, referring to a February 15 rocket attack in northern Iraq.

He said he had recommended the action to the president.