Anger over Israel’s devastating campaign in Gaza – which began after an unprecedented attack by Hamas on October 7 – has grown across the Middle East, fueling violence among groups supported by Iran in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
On January 28, a drone hit a base in Jordan, killing three US soldiers and wounding more than 40, an attack that Washington blamed on Tehran-aligned forces. US and allied troops in the region have been attacked more than 165 times since mid-October, mostly in Iraq and Syria, but deaths in Jordan they were the first due to hostile fire during this period.
The United States responded with attacks against dozens of targets in seven Tehran-linked facilities in Iraq and Syria, but did not hit Iranian territory. Iraqi security sources told AFP that positions of pro-Iranian armed groups were hit in western Iraq last Friday, particularly in the Al-Qaim sector, on the border with neighboring Syria. “A headquarters of the armed factions in the Al-Qaim area was targeted, according to preliminary information it was a small arms depot,” an Interior Ministry official told AFP. An official from Hashed al-Shaabi, a coalition of former paramilitaries, confirmed this attack and another bombing that hit a position further south.
According to a new report from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), at least 23 pro-Iranian fighters were killed by US airstrikes in eastern Syria. According to the director of this NGO, Rami Abdel Rahman, 10 pro-Iranian fighters were killed in the Deir Ezzor region and 13 in the al-Mayadin region. Additionally, nine Syrian and six Iraqi fighters were killed, but there were no civilian casualties.
Both the Iraqi government that that Syrians condemned the attacks, while Tehran declared that “they will have no other result than to intensify tension and instability”. Iraq condemned US retaliatory attacks against pro-Iranian armed groups on its territory as a “violation of Iraqi sovereignty”, warning of “disastrous consequences” for the country and beyond. Friday’s attacks in western Iraq, near the border with Syria, are a “violation of Iraqi sovereignty” and will bring “disastrous consequences for the security and stability of Iraq and the region,” the general said in a statement Yehia Rasool, spokesman for Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani. Iraq also said it would summon the U.S. chargé d’affaires to Baghdad to lodge an official protest against the airstrikes.
Me too’Iran denounced the attacks, with the Foreign Office spokesperson saying they “contradict” Washington and London’s stated intentions to avoid a “wider conflict” in the Middle East.
Diplomatic sources said the United Nations Security Council will meet on Monday 5 February, after Russia requested a meeting “due to the threat to peace and security created by US attacks in Syria and Iraq”. But British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said that Teheran and the ultimately responsible for the violence, telling the Sunday Times that “we must send the clearest signal possible to Iran that what they are doing through their proxies is unacceptable.” “You created them, you supported them, you funded them, you gave them weapons, and ultimately you will be held accountable for what they do,” Cameron said.
© Agence France-Presse