By Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States carried out retaliatory airstrikes on Friday in Iraq and Syria against more than 85 targets linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the militias they back, the U.S. military said, after a deadly attack in Jordan that killed three U.S. troops and injured some 40 others.
The strikes are believed to be just the first in a multi-tiered response by President Joe Biden’s administration in response to the attack last weekend carried out by Iran-backed militants.
While the U.S. strikes did not target any locations inside Iran, they are likely to increase concern about tensions escalating in the Middle East from Israel’s more than three-month-old war with Palestinian Hamas militants in Gaza.
The U.S. military said in a statement that the strikes hit targets including command and control centers, rockets, missiles and drone storage facilities, as well as logistics and munition supply chain facilities.
The strikes hit more than 85 targets with more than 125 munitions.
Syrian state media said on Friday that an “American aggression” on sites in Syria’s desert areas and the Syrian and Iraqi border resulted in a number of casualties and injuries.
It came just hours after Biden and Pentagon leaders attended the remains of the three American soldiers killed in the Jordan attack returning to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
The Jordan attack was the first deadly strike against U.S. troops since the Israel-Hamas war erupted in October.
The United States has assessed that the drone that killed three of its soldiers and also wounded more than 40 other people was made by Iran, U.S. officials have told Reuters.
But the Pentagon had said it did not want war with Iran and did not believe Tehran wanted war either, even as Republican pressure increased on Biden to deal a blow directly against Iran.
Before the retaliatory strikes on Friday, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said that Iran will not start a war but would “respond strongly” to anyone who tried to bully it.
The Revolutionary Guards have scaled back deployment of their senior officers in Syria due to a spate of deadly Israeli strikes and will rely more on allied Shi’ite militia to preserve their sway there.
(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart; editing by Diane Craft and Rosalba O’Brien)
