AIRSTRIKES

eled to Trump’s Mar-a-lago resort in Florida on Sunday for discussions with the president, U.S. officials said.

“What we did is take a decisive response that makes clear what President Trump has said for months and months and months,” Pompeo said, “which is that we will not stand for the Islamic Republic of Iran to take actions that put American men and women in jeopardy.”

Hoffman said the U.S. would conduct additional strikes if the attacks by Kataib Hezbollah did not stop. Iranian proxy forces have carried out 11 attacks over the past two months on bases and facilities housing U.S. contractors and service members, a U.S. official said.

“Iran and their KH proxy forces must cease their attacks on U.S. and coalition forces, and respect Iraq’s sovereignty, to prevent additional defensive actions by U.S. forces,” Hoffman said.

Iran has long supported Kataib Hezbollah by providing weapons and other lethal aid. The group has ties with the Quds Force, an elite unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, the Pentagon said. The U.S. has labeled the Guards Corps a terrorist organization.

Iraq’s Hezbollah fighters are among several armed groups that are close to Iran but also have the imprimatur of the Iraqi government because they fall under the Iraqi security forces. Iraq has deployed the group’s troops to the border with Syria to help defend against ISIS. It has also facilitated the movement of Iranian arms and logistical support across the border to Syria, where Iranian troops are assisting President Bashar Assad’s government, according to Iraqi and U.S. security experts.

The ammunition facilities that were struck Sunday held rockets and drones used by Kataib Hezbollah. The command and control buildings had been used by the group to plot attacks. The ordnance dropped by the F-15ES on the ammunition depots set off several large secondary explosions, U.S. officials said, confirming that the facilities were used to store a significant amount of weaponry.

Sayyid Jaafar al-husseini, the Hezbollah military spokesman in Iraq, claimed that 24 were killed and more than 50 wounded. News media reports in Iraq said one man was a commander of a Kataib Hezbollah brigade. U.S. officials have not been able to confirm how many members of the group were killed.

Hezbollah, responding to the attacks, said that “all options were available” and renewed calls for U.S. troops to leave Iraq.

Officials did not identify the precise location of the sites. The strikes in Syria took place in the Euphrates River Valley in the southeast, officials said.

Experts say Tehran miscalculated that Trump’s desire to avoid war with Iran would restrain the U.S. military if its forces were attacked. Kirsten Fontenrose, a former National Security Council official now with the Atlantic Council, said the current upheaval and protests in Iraq had allowed Iranian proxies to “operate unfettered.” Iran’s stepped-up activity convinced the U.S. that it needed to act.

While Trump has sought to wind down the U.S. war against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, he has built up forces meant to deter against Iranian attacks. Trump administration officials have also said U.S. forces were in Iraq to help counter Iranian influence in Iraq and the region.

As rocket attacks by Iranian proxies have increased in recent weeks, some Defense Department officials have been worried that the situation could escalate beyond the kind of shadow conflict that the U.S. and Iran have been engaged in.

The death of the U.S. contractor and the response by the Pentagon could lead to a further escalation. Iran could respond with a renewed roadside bomb campaign or more powerful rocket and missile attacks, a move that would most likely result in a more aggressive response by the U.S.

U.S. commanders have warned for months about a growing risk of attacks by Iranian proxy forces on U.S. interests and forces in the region, as Tehran chafes against the Trump administration’s renewed economic sanctions and campaign to force it to renegotiate the 2015 nuclear deal.

So far, Iran and its proxies have mostly focused on American allies and partners. The U.S. has accused Iran of striking at oil tankers in the Arabian Sea and launching drone and cruise missile attacks on Saudi oil facilities. Iran also shot down a U.S. drone.

In response, the U.S. launched cyberattacks, but Trump backed away from a larger military airstrike.

Friday’s rocket attack on an Iraqi base where U.S. and allied troops train Iraq’s security forces was a far more direct strike at U.S. forces.

Kataib Hezbollah launched 30 rockets against the base, which is near Kirkuk and is known as K1. The attacks killed the U.S. contractor and wounded four U.S. service members and two members of the Iraqi security forces, Hoffman said.

That attack was one of the two largest over the last two months and the only one to kill a U.S. citizen.

The rising number of attacks in recent months had prompted diplomatic warnings, including private requests to the Iraqi government to pressure Iran to stop the attacks.

While Iran does not always have direct control over its allied paramilitary groups, current and former military officials have long contended that Tehran is able to control the level of violence in Iraq through such groups and its militia.

Barnes writes for The New York Times.