The U.S. conducted retaliatory strikes against Iranian proxies, an escalation of Midd

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U.S. Conducts Retaliatory Strikes in Iraq and Syria Against Iranian Proxies (Part II)
The move, in response to a drone attack that killed three U.S. soldiers in Jordan, was an escalation of hostilities in the Middle East.
By: Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt reporting from Washington
Re: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/02...12bed6ea3384a6

The United States on Friday carried out a series of military strikes against Iran-backed militants in half a dozen sites in Iraq and Syria, according to a U.S. Defense Department official, marking a sharp escalation of the war in the Middle East that the Biden administration has for four months sought to avoid.

President Biden had promised to respond to a drone attack in Jordan on Sunday that killed three American soldiers and injured at least 40 more service members. The military action sought to send a message to Iran and the militias it backs that continued attacks on U.S. troops in the region and international ships in the Red Sea will draw a response.

Mr. Biden approved the retaliatory strikes, U.S. officials said. He even telegraphed that they were coming when he told reporters on Tuesday that he had made a decision on the response to the drone attack on a remote outpost in Jordan.

Mr. Biden and his top aides have been loath to take steps that could draw the United States into a wider war in an already hugely unstable region. In particular, the administration does not want the proxy war underway with Iran to become a more significant conflict.

But with the latest strikes, that possibility is inching closer. Administration officials said Mr. Biden had little choice but to hit back after the strike in Jordan killed the three American soldiers, especially since their deaths came amid a steady stream of attacks from Iran-backed groups like the Houthis in Yemen and Kata’ib Hezbollah in Iraq.

Iran’s official state news agency is reporting at least 10 people have been killed so far in U.S. strikes in Syria, including three Iraqis. The report cites Syrian and Iraqi sources.
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Earlier Report: Part 1 as earlier - Part 2 above ^
From this writer: Farnaz Fassihi New York Times. 28 min. ago.
Topic: What are U.S. troops doing in the Middle East?
Re: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/02...12bed6ea3384a6
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When a drone attack killed three U.S. soldiers at a base in Jordan on Jan. 28, many Americans were left wondering why, years after the U.S. ended its combat mission in Iraq, are the country’s soldiers still in the region?
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Where are U.S. forces in the region?

Roughly 40,000 American troops are stationed across the Middle East, mostly in countries with close ties to the United States. There are far fewer in the region now compared with when the United States was trying to oust the Islamic State from Iraq, or during the preceding years of war.

There were more than 160,000 American troops in Iraq alone in 2007, during the war that followed the U.S. invasion. Now there are only about 2,500 U.S. troops there, stationed at installations like Al Asad Air Base in Iraq’s western desert, to support Iraq’s military.

There are currently about 900 U.S. troops stationed in Syria, where they support Kurdish forces and work to enforce U.S. sanctions against Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based group backed by Iran.

Some of those troops are deployed at the Tanf garrison in southeastern Syria, which is served by a border outpost in Jordan, Tower 22. About 350 Army and Air Force personnel are stationed at Tower 22, the site where the three American soldiers were killed in the drone strike.

Most of the U.S. military presence in the Middle East is in countries with longstanding relationships with Washington. At an air base in Azraq, Jordan, the United States has about 2,000 troops, as well as Special Operations forces and military trainers. There are about 13,500 U.S. forces based in Kuwait, and thousands more in countries including Bahrain, which hosts the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, and Qatar, which helped build an air base used by U.S. Central Command.

2nd photo link: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2024...y=75&auto=webp
Al Asad Air Base in western Iraq in 2019.Credit...Nasser Nasser/Associated Press

Why are so many troops there?
Before the war in Gaza began, the U.S. military presence in the Middle East had been shrinking. In the aftermath of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Biden administration had turned to focus elsewhere, like supporting Ukraine against Russia and potential threats from China.

But American troops have remained in the region in part, U.S. officials say, to project U.S. power — such as deterring Iran from direct war with an American ally, Israel — and to prevent a resurgence of groups like the Islamic State, which emerged from the insurgency and civil war of post-invasion Iraq.

By 2015, the Islamic State controlled several cities in Iraq and Syria, including Mosul and Raqqa, as well as a large chunk of territory along the border between the two countries. A military coalition led by the United States, including forces in Syria and Iraq, defeated it. But although the U.S. military declared its combat mission over in 2021, troops remained to help Iraq battle the group’s remnants, and experts warn that regional instability could provide an opportunity for it to grow again.

Are U.S. forces in the region in danger?
Since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, there have been more than 160 attacks by militias backed by Iran against U.S. forces in Syria, Iraq and Jordan, according to the Pentagon.

The attack on the Tower 22 outpost was the first one known to be lethal, but dozens of service members have been injured. Those include 34 who were wounded at the Jordan base when the drone crashed into the base’s living quarters, and 19 U.S. soldiers who suffered traumatic brain injuries in October attacks in Iraq on Al Asad Air Base and Al Tanf.

President Biden has retaliated with attacks on Iran-aligned militants, hitting groups in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. But top American and Iranian officials have also sought to avoid triggering a direct war, even as they have blamed the other side for stoking regional conflict.

“While we are not seeking war, we are also neither afraid nor running away from war,” Gen. Hossein Salami, the commander in chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, said on Wednesday.
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Even an earlier report: How closely does Iran control the militias it backs? It depends.
By: Alissa J. Rubin w/Israel-Hamas War - 6 hours ago.
Re: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/02...12bed6ea3384a6

Pro-government Iranians gathering near a banner that warns Iran’s enemies — in Farsi and in Hebrew — to “Prepare your coffins,” this month in Tehran.Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
Iran projects its military power through dozens of armed groups across the Middle East, but how much does it control their actions?

That question has taken on new urgency as the United States considers its next steps after an attack by an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia on an American base in northwest Jordan. The attack on Sunday killed three soldiers and injured dozens of others.

Iranian-backed groups have varying histories and relationships with Tehran, but all share Iran’s desire for the U.S. military to leave the region, and for Israel’s power to be reduced. Iranian rhetoric, echoed by its allied groups, often goes further, calling for the elimination of the Israeli state.

Like Iran, most of the allied groups follow the Shiite branch of Islam. The exception is Hamas, whose members are predominantly Sunni Muslims.

Iran has provided weapons, training, financing and other support to the groups, particularly to those in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, according to evidence obtained through weapons seizures, after-action forensics, foreign asset tracing and intelligence gathering. Some training is outsourced to Hezbollah in Lebanon, according to U.S. and international experts.

More recently, Iran has also been enabling the militias to obtain some weapons parts on their own, and to manufacture or retrofit some weapons themselves, according to officials in the Middle East and the U.S. In addition, most of the groups, like Hamas, have their own extensive money-making enterprises, which include both legal activities like construction and illegal ventures like kidnapping and drug smuggling.

Despite its support for the militias, Iran does not necessarily control where and when they attack Western and Israeli targets, according to many Middle Eastern and European experts, as well as U.S. intelligence officials. It does influence the groups and at least in some cases seems able to halt strikes.

After Iraq-based militants struck a U.S. base in Jordan on Sunday, the group the Pentagon suggested was responsible, Kata’ib Hezbollah, whose leadership and troops are close to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, announced it was temporarily standing down at the behest of Iran and the Iraqi government.

Each militia, however, also has its own agenda, depending on its home country.

The Houthi movement, for example, had battlefield success in Yemen’s civil war and controls part of the country. But now, unable to feed their people or create jobs, they are showing strength and prowess to their domestic audience by taking on major powers, attacking shipping headed to and from the Suez Canal, and drawing retaliatory strikes by the United States and its allies.

That has allowed the Houthis to claim the mantle of solidarity with Palestinians, and also aligns the group with Iran’s goal of poking at Israel and its chief ally, the United States.

By contrast, Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has the longest-standing ties to Iran, is part of the Lebanese government. Its decisions about when and how much to attack Israel take into account the risks of Israeli reprisals on Lebanese civilians. A 2020 U.S. Department of State report estimated that Iran’s support for Hezbollah was $700 million annually at that time.

Weapons provided to the groups run the gamut from light arms to rockets, ballistic and cruise missiles — and an array of increasingly sophisticated drones, said Michael Knights of the Washington Institute, who has tracked the proxies for many years.

Iran has been providing smaller direct cash subsidies to its proxies in recent years, in part, experts say, because it is financially squeezed by U.S. and international sanctions.

In addition to direct aid, some of the groups have received in-kind funding like oil, which can be sold or, as in the case of the Houthis, thousands of AK-47s that can also be put on the market, according to a November report from the United Nations.

One Yemeni political analyst, Hisham al-Omeisy, speaking of the Houthis, said: “They’re very well backed by the Iranians, but they’re not puppets on a string. They’re not Iran’s stooges.”

Much the same could be said of other groups.

Iran itself sends different messages about the militias to different audiences, said Mohammed al-Sulami, who runs Rasanah, an Iran-focused research organization based in Saudi Arabia, which has long sparred with Iran for regional influence.

When speaking to domestic and Middle Eastern audiences, Iran tends to portray what it calls the “Axis of Resistance” as being under its leadership and control, and part of its regional strategy. But when addressing Western audiences, Iran often contends that while the groups share similar views, the Islamic Republic is not directing them, Mr. al-Sulami said.

“Iran is very smart in using this gray zone to maneuver,” he said.

Vivian Nereim contributed reporting from Saudi Arabia,
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Our Coverage of the Israel-Hamas War

News and Analysis

More than 800 officials in the United States, the United Kingdom and the E.U. released a public letter of dissent against their governments’ support of Israel in the war in Gaza.

President Biden imposed financial sanctions against four Israelis accused of escalating violence against civilians, intimidating civilians or destroying property in the West Bank. Here’s what we know about the four men.

To end the war in Gaza and free the remaining Israeli hostages, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may have to cut deals that analysts say could end his government — and potentially his career.

Photo link: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2024...y=75&auto=webp
U.S. forces during an exercise in northeastern Syria in 2021.Credit...Baderkhan Ahmad/Associated Press

* What the World Can’t See: From outside Gaza, the scale of death and destruction is impossible to grasp, shrouded by communications blackouts, restrictions barring international reporters and extreme challenges facing local journalists.

* Repurposed Weapons: Israeli military and intelligence officials have concluded that a significant number of weapons used by Hamas in the war in Gaza came from an unlikely source: the Israeli military itself.

* In Search of the Truth: The Israel-Hamas conflict has produced a prodigious amount of disinformation, putting people who fact-check claims — especially those who live in the Middle East — back on their heels.

* Gaza Detainees: Palestinian detainees from Gaza have been stripped, beaten, interrogated and held incommunicado over the past three months, according to accounts by nearly a dozen of the detainees or their relatives interviewed by The New York Times.
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Personal note:
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Even today - and all our yesterdays - these are ongoing battles of which won't end
well for one of them - and it could generate more heat depending on how each side
wars upon one another! It could be sometime in the near future but for right now
there's just too much discontent between the two ideologies to resolve - or at least
end the ongoing blood shed!
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