nuclear-news

US unleashes strikes across Middle East

RT Fri, 02 Feb 2024 

Washington has launched a new bombing campaign against Iranian-backed fighters in Iraq and Syria.

The Pentagon has commenced retaliation strikes in response to a drone attack that killed three US troops at a secretive base in Jordan, targeting dozens of sites in Iraq and Syria linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) Quds Force and affiliated militia groups.

“Our response began today” and “will continue at times and places of our choosing,” US President Joe Biden announced on Friday night. The airstrikes started around midnight on Saturday local time and hit more than 85 Iranian-linked targets, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement.

The bombings come nearly one week after a drone packed with explosives struck Tower 22, a US base in Jordan located near the Syrian and Iraqi borders, killing three soldiers and wounding more than 40 others. The attack, which the US blamed on the Iranian-backed Islamic Resistance in Iraq, marked the first deaths of American troops in a wave of assaults triggered by the Israel-Hamas war.

04 February 202416:35 GMTUS airstrikes on Syria, Iraq and Yemen over the last two days were only the “first round” of Washington’s military response to last week’s drone attack on a US base in Jordan, White House national security spokesman John Kirby told NBC.

“We intend to take additional strikes and additional action to continue to send a clear message that the United States will respond when our forces are attacked or people are killed,” he said.

Kirby promised “more steps – some seen, some perhaps unseen” in comments to CBS, while stressing that he would not describe the planned US actions in the region as “some open-ended military campaign.”

16:15 GMTFurther aggression from the US and UK will not sway Yemen’s Houthis from their decision to act in support of the Palestinians of Gaza, the group’s spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam said in a statement, adding that the movement’s military capabilities had been forged during years of brutal war and would not be easily destroyed.

14:51 GMT

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced on X (formerly Twitter) that British Typhoon fighter jets “successfully took out specific Houthi military targets in Yemen, further degrading the Houthis’ capabilities.”

He denounced as “unacceptable” the attacks on merchant vessels in the Red Sea being perpetrated by Yemeni Shiite Houthi militants. The PM added that it is London’s duty to “protect innocent lives and preserve freedom.”

Earlier in the day, the US Central Command revealed that a series of combined air- and sea-launched strikes had taken out at least 36 Houthi targets in 13 locations across Yemen…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

The US-led coalition has targeted Yemen with 48 airstrikes in the past few hours, Houthi spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree has said on X (formerly Twitter). The US Central Command earlier announced that the bombing campaign had hit at least 36 targets in 13 locations in the country.

“These attacks will not deter us from our moral, religious and humanitarian stance in support of the steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip,” Saree insisted, adding that the actions of the US and the UK “won’t pass without response and punishment.”

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has affirmed his support of Washington’s latest military actions, calling the strikes “proportionate” and “retaliatory.”

“You can’t have the sort of attacks that we’ve seen and see no response – that’s whether it be the actions of the Houthis in targeting our trade, whether it be the attacks that occurred on Americans in Jordan,” Albanese told ABC on Sunday, 

Albanese said he does not believe the US-led strikes could spark a wider conflict in the Middle East, insisting “we want to see the area settled down.”  https://www.rt.com/news/591739-us-retaliation-strikes-updates/

February 5, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | MIDDLE EAST, USA, weapons and war