US launches retaliatory strikes on IRGC, Iran-backed militias in Iraq, Syria

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The United States Central Command (CENTCOM) early Saturday said it carried out retaliatory airstrikes on over 85 targets in Iraq and Syria against Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF) and Tehran-backed militias.

The strikes are in retaliation to the deaths of three US soldiers in a drone strike carried out by pro-Iran militias on a US military base in Jordan last Sunday, and are part of a significant US retaliation campaign against Iran-backed militias who have launched over 165 attacks on American troops and bases in Iraq and Syria since mid-October, angry over Washington’s support for Israel in its war against the Gaza Strip. 

“At 4:00 p.m. (EST) Feb. 02, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces conducted airstrikes in Iraq and Syria against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force and affiliated militia groups. U.S. military forces struck more than 85 targets, with numerous aircraft to include long-range bombers flown from United States. The airstrikes employed more than 125 precision munitions,” CENTCOM said on X.

Numerous facilities including “command and control operations centers, intelligence centers, rockets, and missiles, and unmanned aired vehicle storages” were struck, CENTCOM added. 

US President Joe Biden in a later statement said the strikes were carried out at his direction against IRGC and pro-Iran militia facilities used to attack US forces. 

“Our response began today. It will continue at times and places of our choosing,” Biden said. 

“Let all those who might seek to do us harm know this: If you harm an American, we will respond,” he stressed. 

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a Britain-based war monitor, said that 18 pro-Iran militiamen were killed in Syria’s eastern Deir ez-Zor province, near the Iraqi border, by suspected American strikes. 

Iraqi security sources also told AFP that a strike was carried out on Qaim district in the country's western Anbar province, near the border with Syria.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a network of shadow Iraqi militia groups affiliated with the IRGC, has claimed responsibility for most of the attacks on US interests in Iraq and Syria.

Around 2,500 American troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria are leading an international coalition through Operation Inherent Resolve that has assisted Kurdish, Iraqi, and local Syrian forces in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS), which once held swathes of land in Iraq and Syria but was declared territorially defeated in 2019.

Updated at 1:19 am