Thread: Plans for U.S. strikes on Iranian personnel and facilities in Iraq, Syria approved af

U.S. officials have confirmed to CBS News that plans have been approved for a series of strikes over a number of days against targets — including Iranian personnel and facilities — inside Iraq and Syria. The strikes will come in response to drone and rocket attacks targeting U.S. forces in the region, including the drone attack on Sunday that killed three U.S. service members at the Tower 22 base inside Jordan, near the Syrian border.


Speaking at the Pentagon Thursday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters that the U.S. won't tolerate attacks on American troops.


"This is a dangerous moment in the Middle East," Austin said, noting that Israel's ongoing war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and attacks by Houthi rebels in Yemen on commercial shipping in the Red Sea were also happening in the region. "We will continue to work to avoid a wider conflict in the region, but we will take all necessary actions to defend the United States, our interests and our people, and we will respond when we choose, where we choose and how we choose."


Weather will be a major factor in the timing of the strikes, the U.S. officials told CBS News, as the U.S. has the capability to carry out strikes in bad weather but prefers to have better visibility of selected targets as a safeguard against inadvertently hitting civilians who might stray into the area at the last moment.

There have been no new attacks on U.S. troop locations in the region since the Iran-backed militia Kataib Hezbollah announced Wednesday that it was suspending military operations against American forces. There was no indication from U.S. officials that the group's declared suspension was delaying the American military's retaliatory strikes.


Austin reacted to the group's statement during Thursday's news conference.


"We always listen to what people are saying, but we watch what they do, and ... actions are everything, so we'll see what happens in the future," Austin said.


Iran's reaction to the looming threat of American retaliation against what the Biden administration calls Iranian proxy groups has been a consistent denial of any responsibility for the attacks on American forces — and a warning that any strike on Iranian territory or personnel would escalate tension in the tumultuous region, not make U.S. forces safer.


Austin told reporters the U.S. was trying to "hold the right people accountable" without escalating the conflict in the region.


"We will have a multitiered response, and ... we have the ability to respond a number of times depending on what the situation is," Austin said.

A number of Iran-backed groups in the Middle East have stepped up attacks on U.S. and Israeli-linked entities amid Israel's war with Hamas. The Palestinian militant group, which has controlled Gaza for years, sparked the war with its brutal Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel, which Israeli officials say killed some 1,200 people.


Israel has waged a devastating offensive in Gaza since that day, which officials in the Hamas-run enclave say has killed more than 26,000 people, the majority of them women and children. Israel insists that it takes all possible measures to avoid harming civilians, but has vowed to continue its offensive until Hamas is destroyed.


Iran is a vital backer of Hamas, and the many other groups it supports across the region, including the Houthi rebels in Yemen who have attacked ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, and Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has engaged in regular cross-border fire with Israeli forces, say they are attacking Western interests in support of the Palestinian people.


Early Thursday morning, U.S. forces shot down another drone over the Gulf of Aden, U.S. Central Command said in a statement posted to social media. Later in the morning, U.S. forces also destroyed a Houthi explosive sea drone in the Red Sea, the command said.


Two anti-ship ballistic missiles were launched from Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen on Thursday afternoon while a Liberian-flagged cargo ship was in the Red Sea, Central Command said. The missiles went into the water and didn't hit the ship.

Plans for U.S. strikes on Iranian personnel and facilities in Iraq, Syria approved after Jordan drone attack - CBS News

Shadow War With Iran Risks Turning Into a Direct Conflict

WASHINGTON—For decades, the U.S. and Iran have waged a shadow war across the Middle East following a rule understood by both sides: If you hit us, we will hit back, at least as hard.


But as the Biden administration prepares to retaliate for a drone strike by Iranian-backed militias that killed three American soldiers last weekend, the calculations of the two longstanding adversaries has changed. Neither Washington or Tehran appears eager for a direct military confrontation.


Sunday’s drone strike against a small outpost in Jordan near its borders with Iraq and Syria was the first attack by Iran-backed proxies since October to cause U.S. fatalities, sparking calls in Congress for the White House to respond with military action targeting Tehran.


For the Biden administration, hitting Iran’s paramilitary forces risks a counterstrike against American troops or Middle East bases by Tehran’s formidable arsenal of advanced missiles and drones, expanding the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas into a wider regional conflict that the White House is seeking to avoid in a presidential election year.


For Iran, the calculation is at least as complex. If it tries to rein in the proxy forces it backs in Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon, it risks tarnishing its claim to be leading the so-called axis of resistance of militias and friendly Middle East allies against the U.S. and Israel. But if it takes on the more powerful U.S. directly, it faces a potentially punishing military defeat.

“Each side is trying to calibrate the use of force as a way of trying to change the behavior of the other side, but they don’t want to cross red lines,” said Gerald Feierstein, a former U.S. State Department official and a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, a Washington think tank.


President Biden has declared he holds Iran responsible for the deadly drone attack, arguing that the Iraqi militias he says were behind the drone strike are among the many proxy forces in the Middle East funded and armed by Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force.


Biden has approved plans for multiday strikes in Iraq and Syria against multiple targets, including Iranian personnel and facilities, according to U.S. officials. But the response, expected to begin as soon as this weekend, will be “tiered,” mixing military actions with other steps that can be adjusted to signal that Washington doesn’t seek further escalation.


The goal, U.S. officials say, is to get Iran and its proxies to dial back their attacks across the region as the White House and its allies pursue talks on a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel that they hope will de-escalate tensions.

Iran has sent its own signals, insisting it didn’t order the attack and warning that U.S. reprisals against Iranian territory or personnel deployed around the region would prompt it to strike back. The underlying message, analysts said, was one of restraint as long as Washington doesn’t cross its red lines.


“What we’re seeing is a kind of negotiation behind the scenes to manage tensions so that they don’t escalate,” said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East program at Chatham House, a London think tank.


By signaling its intention well in advance of any strikes, the White House may give Iran time to reposition personnel and equipment, limiting the effectiveness of the U.S. attacks, analysts said. But it could also ease pressure on Tehran to respond.


Joseph Votel, a retired U.S. Army general and former top Middle East commander, said the U.S. response had to send a message to Iran that would only be effective if it included direct attacks on Iranian targets, along with other strikes on its proxies.


“There has to be a very unambiguous message to Iran that we hold them responsible for the actions of these militias,” he said. “I think the targeting has to include some targets that are of value to Iran.”


The targets don’t need to be inside Iran to deliver the message, he added, but they need to be chosen carefully to avoid sparking a wider war. “They have the ability to strike back across the region with a fairly robust missile capability,” he said.

As recently as 2020, tensions between Washington and Tehran nearly spilled into sustained conflict after then-President Trump ordered a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad that killed Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps paramilitary Quds Force. Iran responded with a barrage of ballistic missiles against U.S. troops in Iraq, an attack that caused dozens of casualties but no U.S. deaths.

It is far from clear, however, that Washington and Iran can avoid an escalation this time that neither side appears to want.


Iranian military and financial power forms the backbone of its proxy network around the region, but Tehran doesn’t exert full command and control over it. Not every member shares Iran’s Shiite ideology, and all the groups have domestic agendas that sometimes conflict with Tehran’s.


Some operate in geographically isolated areas, making it tricky for Iran to provide weapons, advisers and training. That includes Hamas, which is a Sunni movement, and the Houthis in Yemen, whose attacks on shipping have upended global trade flows and triggered U.S. and U.K. counterstrikes. In Syria and Iraq, Iranian-backed groups have launched drone and rocket attacks against U.S. bases, most of which have been intercepted by air-defense systems.


On Wednesday, a U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer in the Red Sea said it intercepted a ballistic missile fired from a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen and shot down three Iranian drones “in its vicinity” without injuries to the crew or damage to the ship.


If a Houthi missile hits a U.S. warship, it could produce even more pressure on the White House to respond with attacks on Iran, Feierstein said.


Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group, a conflict-resolution think tank, said the death of U.S. service members in the Jordan attack has likely forced Biden to choose targets that could result in Iranian casualties.


“If they target IRGC assets but minimize fatalities, Iran might not necessarily respond in a way that would then extend the cycle of violence,” he said. “But if there are IRGC fatalities, it will be h

wsj.com

The United States on Friday imposed sanctions targeting Iran's ballistic missile and drone procurement programs as well as officials it said were involved in hacking US infrastructure, as Washington looks to increase pressure on Tehran.
The US Treasury Department said in a statement on Friday it had imposed sanctions on four Iran- and Hong Kong-based companies involved in providing materials and technology to Iran's ballistic missile and drone programs as well as a Hong Kong-based firm for selling Iranian commodities to Chinese entities.
The Treasury also said it placed sanctions on six officials of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp's Cyber Electronic Command (IRGC-CEC) for malicious cyber activities against critical infrastructure in the United States and elsewhere.



Iran's mission to the United Nations in New York and China's embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The sanctions, announced in separate statements, represent Washington's latest efforts to punish Tehran, whose proxies in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and the Gaza Strip have attacked US and Israeli targets.
The US Embassy in Jerusalem (credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)The United States blamed a weekend attack on a US base in Jordan that killed three American soldiers and wounded more than 40 on Iran-backed militants and the Biden administration has promised a response that will include retaliatory strikes.
The weekend attack was the first to kill US troops in the Middle East since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October after a cross-border rampage by Iran-backed Hamas militants that killed about 1,200 people.
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The Treasury said it had imposed sanctions the four Iran- and Hong Kong-based entities for operating as covert procurement entities for Iran's Pishtazan Kavosh Gostar Boshra (PKGB) and its managing director Hamed Dehghan, who it said support Iranian military organizations, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The Treasury named the three Hong Kong firms it accused of being part of the procurement network for Iran's ballistic missile and drone programs as FY International Trading Co., Limited, Duling Technology HK Limited and Advantage Trading Co., Limited.
Hong Kong-based China Oil and Petroleum Company Limited was also hit with sanctions on Friday, with the Treasury accusing it of being a front company for the IRGC’s Quds Force. The Treasury said it has arranged contracts and sold hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of Iranian commodities and was involved in trade with China-based entities to benefit the Quds Force.
Narin Sepehr Mobin Istatis (NSMI), an Iran-based subsidiary of PKGB, was also among those sanctioned in Friday’s action, which freezes any US assets belonging to those targeted and generally bars Americans from dealing with them. Those that engage in certain transactions with them also risk being hit with sanctions.
In a separate statement, the Treasury said it had imposed sanctions on six IRGC-CEC officials: Hamid Reza Lashgarian, Mahdi Lashgarian, Hamid Homayunfal, Milad Mansuri, Mohammad Bagher Shirinkar, and Reza Mohammad Amin Saberian.
The State Department also imposed sanctions over oil trafficking

The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday announced terrorism and sanctions-evasion charges and seizures linked to a billion-dollar oil trafficking network that it says finances Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
"The Department of Justice's actions are critical to stemming the flow of money that Iran uses to engage in activities that threaten people inside the United States, as well as our interests across the world," a senior DOJ official told reporters in a call before the unsealing of the charges in two federal courts.
The DOJ seized more than $108 million that it said China Oil & Petroleum Company Limited, which it called an IRGC front company, attempted to launder through accounts at U.S. financial institutions. The department said more than 500,000 barrels of Iran's sanctioned oil were also seized.

Seven defendants, including Morteza Rostam Ghasemi, who is the son of a IRGC commander and Iranian petroleum minister, and an Iranian shipping official were charged in connection with those seizures.
Iran's crude exports and oil output hit new highs in 2023 despite U.S. sanctions. In January, China's oil trade with Iran stalled as Tehran withheld shipments and demanded higher prices from its top client, tightening cheap supply for the world's biggest crude importer. Iranian oil makes up some 10% of China's crude imports.
"The cases that we're announcing are targeting players on both sides, both the supply and demand side" of sanctioned Iranian oil," the DOJ official said.



US imposes fresh sanctions over Iranian arms, cyber activity - The Jerusalem Post

Originally Posted by david44

Can anyone remind me last time Asians bombed America?

December 7, 1941

US airstrikes hit ‘more than 85 targets’ in Iraq and Syria; officials say US will not strike inside Iran – live | Joe Biden | The Guardian

Summary of the day so far

US military forces have attacked more than 80 targets in Iraq and Syria in a wide-ranging air assault on sites belonging to Iran-linked militias and Tehran’s Revolutionary Guard. The US military’s Central Command said it had struck with more than 125 bombs in an attack that took place around midnight local time (4pm ET) in what is being described as the first of multiple attacks against the groups. The airstrikes took place over about 30 minutes on Friday, and three of the sites struck were in Iraq and four were in Syria, Lt Gen Douglas Sims, director of the joint staff, told reporters.

Initial reports from the ground were limited. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said at least 18 Iran-backed fighters have been killed in strikes in eastern Syria. At least 26 important sites housing pro-Iran groups including weapons depots have been destroyed in raids striking a large swath of eastern Syria, stretching more than 62 miles (100km) from the city of Deir ez-Zor to Albu Kamal, near the Iraq border, the monitoring group told AFP.

John Kirby, the White House national security spokesperson, said the responses “began tonight. They’re not going to end tonight.”

Joe Biden - if you harm an American, we will respond

Originally Posted by Norton

December 7, 1941

Well technically 9/11 could be in there too.

There has been plenty of Asian perpetrator bombings in the USA starting back to the early 90’s.

Originally Posted by Bettyboo

People who think that the Americans should have sat at home and done nothing all these years would see the likes of Russia, China and Iran run riot around the world through their despot leaders. That world would NOT be a better place.

I'm pretty sure Cambodia and Laos think they should stop sticking their fucking noses in other peoples' business.

White House says strikes against militias in Iraq and Syria were 'successful'

• Iran calls strikes ‘strategic mistake’; Syria and Iraq condemn U.S. actions

Iran’s Foreign Ministry described U.S. strikes on Syria and Iraq as a “strategic mistake” that would only increase “tension and instability in the region.”

According to a statement Saturday, spokesman Nasser Kanaani described the attacks as “a violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq and Syria.”

The Syrian Defense Ministry said Saturday that the strikes killed “a number” of civilians and military personnel in Syria and caused “significant damage to public and private property,” according to a statement shared Saturday morning by state news agency SANA. It described the strikes as “blatant air aggression on a number of sites and towns in the eastern region of Syria, near the Syrian-Iraqi border.”

The ministry said the strikes targeted locations where Syrian forces are fighting the Islamic State group — and accused the United States of “an attempt to weaken” efforts by Syria and its allies to fight “terrorism.” “The occupation of parts of Syrian territory by American forces cannot continue,” the statement continued.

At least 18 militants in Syria were killed in the U.S. strikes, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group. The group said the U.S. strikes had targeted 26 sites in Syria, and that pro-Iran militias had taken precautions ahead of the strikes by repositioning their commanders and fighters.

Basim al-Awadi, a spokesman for the Iraqi prime minister, said that 16 people, including civilians, were killed and 25 injured in the country.

In a statement Saturday, Awadi said the attacks targeted locations belonging to Iraqi security forces in the west of Iraq, as well as “adjacent civilian areas.” He described the strikes as “aggression against Iraq’s sovereignty,” criticized the presence of coalition forces in Iraq and accused the United States of “deception and falsifying facts by falsely claiming pre-coordination for this aggression.”

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Friday that the U.S. “did inform the Iraqi government prior to the strikes occurring.”

The roughly 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria are described by U.S. officials as part of an operation to keep the Islamic State from regaining a foothold in the region.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...VPZV2RNNYSRPGI

• US national security adviser Jake Sullivan says more strikes planned on Iran-backed groups

The United States intends to launch further strikes at Iran-backed groups in the Middle East, the White House national security adviser said on Sunday, after hitting Tehran-aligned factions in Iraq, Syria and Yemen over the last two days.

The United States and Britain unleashed attacks against 36 Houthi targets in Yemen, a day after the US military hit Tehran-backed groups in Iraq and Syria in retaliation for a deadly attack on US troops in Jordan.

“We intend to take additional strikes, and additional action, to continue to send a clear message that the United States will respond when our forces are attacked, when our people are killed,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told NBC’s “Meet the Press” programme on Sunday.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/04/houthis-vow-more-red-sea-attacks-after-third-wave-of-us-uk-strikes-on-yemen