10/27/2023

U.S. Retaliates Against Iran in Syria

The country is trying to ward off more troop attacks

Early Friday, the United States carried out airstrikes on facilities used by Iranian forces in eastern Syria, U.S. officials said, trying to ward off more attacks on American forces in a region bracing for further escalation in the Israel-Hamas war.

The Biden administration has sent more U.S. military resources to the Middle East in an effort to deter Iran — and its proxies in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq — from engaging in a regional war after Hamas’s Oct. 7 surprise attack into southern Israel. The U.S. strikes were in retaliation for nearly daily attacks against American forces over the past 10 days and were an escalation from targeting the militias in Iraq and Syria that Tehran helps arm, train and equip.

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said that the airstrikes had been "narrowly tailored strikes in self-defense," and "do not constitute a shift in our approach to the Israel-Hamas conflict." Nineteen U.S. troops based in Iraq and Syria suffered traumatic brain injuries after rocket and drone attacks from Iran-backed militants last week, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The New York Times.