Biden bombs Syria in his 1st military strike

Airstrikes target Iran-backed militant groups in retaliation for attacks on US personnel in Iraq

WASHINGTON: In the first military action conducted by the US under President Joe Biden, the American military on Thursday carried out airstrikes against Iran-backed militant groups in Syria. It came in retaliation for attacks on US and coalition personnel in Iraq in recent weeks.

“At President Joe Biden’s direction, US military forces... launched airstrikes against infrastructure utilised by Iranian-backed militant groups in eastern Syria,” John Kirby, the US defence department spokesperson, said in a statement. He added that the strikes had “destroyed multiple facilities located at a border control point used by a number of Iranianbacked militant groups including Kait’ib Hezbollah and Kait’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada”.

The US didn’t release any casualty figures or estimates. But a war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, has said that 22 members of the militant groups were killed.

Kirby said the military operation was in response to “recent attacks against American and coalition personnel in Iraq” and was “proportionate”, and conducted alongside diplomatic measure, including consultations with coalition partners.

A civilian contractor with the US-led military coalition was killed and one US service personnel was among six people injured in a rocket attack on an airport in Erbil, the capital of the

Kurdistan region of Iraq, last week. US troops have a military facility adjacent to the airport.

A pro-Iran militant group that calls itself Saraya Awliya Al-Dam had claimed responsibility. Other Iran-backed groups have carried out attacks on US personnel and facilities in the past.

Airstrikes a violation of international law?

Mary Ellen O’Connell, a professor at Notre Dame Law School, criticised the US attack as a violation of international law. “The United Nations Charter makes absolutely clear that the use of military force on the territory of a foreign sovereign state is lawful only in response to an armed attack on the defending state for which the target state is responsible,” she said, according to an AP report. “None of those elements is met in the Syria strike.”

An October 4, 2014 file photo shows two US Navy F-18E Super Hornets deployed to Iraq to support military operations against the Islamic State terror group.