US Conducts Air Strikes After Drone Attack By Iran-Linked Forces
The US military carried out air strikes in Syria Thursday night against Iran-backed militia groups who it blamed for a deadly drone attack on its forces.
The US military carried out air strikes in Syria Thursday night against Iran-backed militia groups who it blamed for a deadly drone attack on its forces.
The attack killed an American contractor, injured another, and wounded five US troops earlier in the day, the Pentagon said.
Both the attack on US personnel and the retaliation were disclosed by the Pentagon at the same time late on Thursday.
The attack against took place at a coalition base near Hasakah in northeast Syria at approximately 1:38 p.m. (1038 GMT) on Thursday, it said.
The US intelligence community assessed that the one-way attack drone was Iranian in origin, the military said, a conclusion that could further aggravate already strained tensions between Washington and Tehran.
The decision to launch the drone attack against US forces came two weeks after Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to re-establish relations with Chinese mediation, a development that many analysts saw as a sign of tension-reduction in the region.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the retaliatory strikes were carried out at the direction of President Joe Biden and targeted facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
"The air strikes were conducted in response to today’s attack as well as a series of recent attacks against Coalition forces in Syria by groups affiliated with the IRGC," Austin said in a statement.
"No group will strike our troops with impunity."
Three service members and a contractor required medical evacuation to Iraq, where the US-led coalition battling the remnants of Islamic State has medical facilities, the military said.
The other two wounded American troops were treated at the base in northeast Syria, the Pentagon said.
The number of casualties - one killed and six wounded - is highly unusual, even though attempted drone attacks against US personnel in Syria are somewhat common.
US troops have come under attack by Iranian-backed groups about 78 times since the beginning of 2021, according to Army General Erik Kurilla, who oversees US troops in the Middle East as the head of Central Command.
Kurilla, testifying to the House Armed Services Committee earlier on Thursday, cautioned about Iran's fleet of drones.
"The Iranian regime now holds the largest and most capable unmanned aerial vehicle force in the region," he said.
Three drones targeted a US base in January in Syria's Al-Tanf region. The US military said two of the drones were shot down while the remaining drone hit the compound, injuring two members of the Syrian Free Army forces.
U.S. officials believe drone and rocket attacks are being directed by Iran-backed militia, deployed in Syria for more than decade to support the country’s controversial president Bashar al-Assad and expand Tehran’s influence in the region.
The attack came just weeks after the top US general, Mark Milley, visited northeast Syria to assess the mission against Islamic State and the risk to U.S. personnel.
Asked by reporters traveling with him at the time if he believed the deployment of roughly 900 US troops to Syria was worth the risk, Milley tied the mission to the security of the United States and its allies, saying: "If you think that that's important, then the answer is 'Yes.'"
"I happen to think that's important," Milley said.
Thousands of Islamic State fighters are in detention facilities guarded by Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, America's key ally in the country.
American officials say that Islamic State could still regenerate into a major threat.
The mission, which former President Donald Trump nearly ended in 2018 before softening his withdrawal plans, is a remnant of the larger global war against terrorism that had included once the war in Afghanistan and a far larger U.S. military deployment to Iraq.
Reporting by Reuters
The party emerged in Iran under populist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-2013) but it also left its impact on political life under presidents Hassan Rouhani (2013-2021) and Ebrahim Raisi (2021 onward).
A report in the moderate conservative Khabar Online website on March 22 characterized Paydari as a party that has adversely affected "Iran's progress" by standing against the people's wishes. The party has an opaque leadership, but its fingers can be seen pulling the strings everywhere.
According to Khabar Online, during the past year, Paydari prioritized its own factional interests over the country's national interests and as a result, Iran lagged other countries on the route to development. Most of what the party has been doing at the parliament were about restricting people's access to the Internet, promoting the idea of use of force against dissidents and invading Iranians' private lives by backing forced hijab and other religious rules.
Some of these fundamentalist approaches led to recent nationwide protests. The party's intervention in every aspect of life has often annoyed the populace. Many reacted with frustration and anger when the party's mouthpiece Raja News website demanded persecution and harsh punishment for a female stand-up comedian who makes fun of regime politicians.
Khabar Online charged that while the people's welfare and livelihood is the country's most important problem, Paydari members, who constitute the majority in the Iranian parliament are concerned about Iranian women's defiance to compulsory hijab.
Although not all the party's members are known to the public, views expressed by politicians in the past two decades have revealed to keen Iran watchers that even some high-ranking IRGC generals also subscribe to Paydari's fundamentalist ideology. Some of these generals are now members of the parliament with or without their uniforms.
On the other hand, many Raisi's cabinet members, including most of those on his economic team are said to be the leading members of Paydari. The party's link to Raisi became evident during his Presidential election campaign when its leading members such as former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili were active. However, like many other areas in Iranian politics, it is never clear who is the cart and who is the horse. Is Raisi using Paydari or is the party using the president?
Paydari is also known for its ruthless opposition to the revival of nuclear deal (JCPOA) with world powers, which some argue aligns with the murky role Russia has been playing in the nuclear issue.
During 2014 and 2015 when the agreement was being negotiated, opposition to the deal at the parliament came mainly from Paydari lawmakers or those who were close to the party.
On the economic front, although a minority at the Majles worked hard to impeach Raisi's economic ministers, Paydari members obstructed all the motions in collaboration with their allies at the presidium, Khabar Online wrote, echoing other media in Iran.
In the cultural sphere, Paydari has always defended the most hard-line policies over hijab and restricting civil liberties, while virtually doing nothing to help revive the economy.
The most damaging policies followed by Paydari have been the attack on the Saudi Embassy in Tehran in 2016 by "rouge elements" and the party's explicit opposition to a nuclear deal that could have saved the nation from economic misery, the moderate-conservative website said.
The Belgian capital hosted the European foreign ministers at the Council of Europe on Thursday, a good opportunity for Iranian activists who want European countries to designate the IRGC as a first step, followed by the expulsion of the Islamic Republic’s envoys, towards the fall of the regime.
Several European politicians, including Danial Ilkhanipour and Alireza Akhondi, were among the speakers of the events that were held during the demonstrations.
Ilkhanipour, a German-Iranian member of the Hamburg city parliament, told the crowd that in the past few months, Iranians have shown they can achieve what they want if they unite, referring to several rounds of sanctions by EU and a resolution by the European Parliament asking the EU to list the IRGC as a terrorist entity for its role in the repression of popular protests and the supply of drones to Russia.
Akhondi, a Swedish-Iranian member of the Swedish Parliament, said that “The Islamic Republic has killed people in Europe and kidnapped people such as Iranian-German national Jamshid Sharmahd,” who faces a death sentence in Iran on charge of "corruption on earth". Sharmahd, who is also a US resident, is held by Tehran for allegedly heading a pro-monarchist group accused of a deadly 2008 bombing and planning other attacks in the country. Akhondi claimed that a large number of agents of the Islamic Republic are here in Brussels.
Vahid Beheshti, the British-Iranian activist who is on hunger strike outside the UK Foreign Office for the same cause, also sent a video message to the gathering, telling the European foreign ministers that as Lebanon’s Hezbollah is blacklisted as a terror group, Iran’s Guards should also be designated.
Most of the speakers of the event asked EU members how they can ignore such a large amount of evidence on human rights violations and terrorist acts perpetrated by the IRGC.
Earlier in the day, the block's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell tweeted that “Ukraine has been attacked again by Russia with Iranian drones, targeting educational facilities and a missile attack on a residential building in Zaporizhzhia. Just when Putin expressed need for peaceful settlement to President Xi, Russian again commits war crimes.”
In January, Borrell said that the European Union cannot list the IRGC as a terrorist entity until an European court has determined that they are, noting "Ministers adopted a new package of sanctions against Iran, targeting those driving the repression.” “The EU strongly condemns the brutal and disproportionate use of force by the Iranian authorities against peaceful protesters," he said but no action was taken to designate the IRGC.
The IRGC was set up shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution to protect the Shiite clerical ruling establishment and provide a counterweight to the regular armed forces. It has an estimated 125,000-strong military with army, navy and air units. It also commands the Basij religious militia, a volunteer paramilitary force loyal to the clerical establishment which is often used to crack down on anti-government protests.
There have been numerous Iranian terror acts in Europe, where courts have indicted top officials. In addition, IRGC’s record in organizing attacks elsewhere are well-documented. Critics say that Borrell and many of the European diplomats are focused on re-starting nuclear talks with Iran after the previous long round of negotiations in 2021-2022 ended last September without success.
The current round of antiregime protests engulfed the country in September when 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini was on a trip to capital Tehran where she was beaten to death by the ‘morality police’ for “improper hijab.”