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What he probably heard was the sound of seven 500-pound bombs hitting a compound near the border. The complex, according to the Pentagon, was used by two Iraqi militias affiliated with Iran, Kata’ib Hezbollah and Kata’ib Sayyid Al-Shuhada.
Before-and-after satellite images released by Maxar Technologies, a space technology company, vividly show just how much these bombs destroyed.
The “front” image shows a complex, just over a third of a kilometer (about 370 meters) from the Iraqi border, containing a dozen buildings of varying sizes. In the “after” image, almost all of the buildings were destroyed and the dirt in and around the compound blackened by the explosions.
It is not known how many militiamen were killed. Kata’ib Hezbollah recognized only one death, without specifying where on the Iraqi-Syrian border he died. One US official said “up to a handful” have been killed, while other reports claim between 17 and 22 people have died.
The Pentagon said the strike was designed as a US response to a series of recent rocket and mortar attacks against US and coalition positions in Iraq. On February 15, a volley of rockets fell on the grounds of Erbil International Airport and in residential areas of the city, killing a contractor while injuring several US personnel and Iraqi civilians. The green area of Baghdad, where the US embassy is located, has been regularly the target of mortar and rocket fire. Kata’ib Hezbollah has repeatedly denied any involvement in the attacks, and did so again in a statement released on Friday.
Pentagon officials told CNN the target compound was unrelated to the attacks, but Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said he was “confident” that it was being used by the same militias targeting them. US and coalition forces in Iraq with rocket attacks.
The armed groups that allegedly use it, Kata’ib Hezbollah and Kata’ib Sayyid Al-Shuhada, are just two of the myriad militias that came to prominence during the war against Daesh in Syria and Iraq, filling the void left by an Iraqi army. it was in full retreat.
I spent long periods in 2015 and 2016 with some of these militias as they fought to get north of Baghdad. Some were well organized and disciplined, others radical and unstable.
Their commanders never shied away from the support they received from Iran.
“Yes, we are telling the world, we have Iranian advisers,” Hadi Al-Amari, a senior commander of the pro-Iranian Iraqi Badr Brigades, told me in 2015 on the front lines outside the town of Tikrit. , then under the control of the Islamic State. “We are proud of them and thank them very much for participating with us.”
Nearby, I passed an Iranian in combat fatigues, who told me in broken Arabic that he was a volunteer.
A militia commander told me at the time: “It was better to have four Iranian advisers on the front line than 400 American advisers sitting in the green zone in Baghdad.”
Since then, the Iranian-backed Iraqi militias have grown increasingly powerful, while relations between Washington and Tehran have deteriorated significantly.
Now the United States is in a situation where it hopes to make it clear that it will not tolerate more attacks from Iranian-backed militias on its positions in Iraq, but at the same time wants to reopen a dialogue with the Iran. Sending this message without burning the bridges he is trying to build in Tehran will not be an easy task.
Friday’s strike was the first known military action taken by the Biden administration, making it the seventh consecutive U.S. administration to use military force in the Middle East.
The administrations from Washington are coming. Administrations in Washington are going. Some things, however, never change.
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