BREAKING: The U.S. has launched airstrikes in Iraq targeting the Iranian-backed Shia militia members believed responsible for a rocket attack Wednesday that killed and wounded American and British troops at a base north of Baghdad.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper testifies to the Senate Armed Services Committee about the budget, Wednesday, March 4, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington. An uptick in Taliban attacks against Afghan forces that prompted a retaliatory U.S. airstrike has underscored the fragility of the peace deal between the Trump administration and the group. Esper told the Senate hearing that the Taliban are honoring the agreement by not attacking U.S.
The strikes marked a rapid escalation in tensions with Tehran and its proxy groups in Iraq, just two months after Iran carried out a massive ballistic missile attack against American troops at a base in Iraq.U.S. defense leaders on Thursday threatened a retaliatory strike against Iranian-backed Shia militia in Iraq, saying they know who launched the rockets in Iraq that killed and wounded U.S. and coalition troops and the attackers will be held accountable.
At the White House, Trump said the attackers were a rebel group that “mostly likely looked like it could be backed by Iran. And we’ll see what the response is.” And Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Pentagon reporters the U.S. knows ”with a high degree of certainty” who launched the attack.
Two U.S. troops and one British service member were killed and 14 other personnel were wounded when 18 rockets hit the base on Wednesday. The U.S. military said the 107 mm Katyusha rockets were fired from a truck launcher that was found by Iraqi security forces near the base after the attack. That in turn led to protests at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. They were followed Jan. 3 by a U.S. airstrike that killed Iran’s most powerful military officer, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a leader of the Iran-backed militias in Iraq, of which Kataib Hezbollah is a member. In response to the Soleimani killing, Iran launched a massive ballistic missile attack on Jan. 8, at al-Asad air base in Iraq, that resulted in traumatic brain injuries to more than 100 American troops.
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