US strikes Iraq militia blamed in American contractor’s death
WASHINGTON
(AP) — The U.S. carried out military strikes in Iraq and Syria
targeting an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia blamed for a rocket attack
that killed an American contractor, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said
Sunday.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the strikes send the
message that the U.S. will not tolerate actions by Iran that jeopardize
American lives.
“Precision defensive strikes” were conducted
against five sites of Kataeb Hezbollah, or Hezbollah Brigades, Defense
Department spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a statement earlier
Sunday.
The U.S. blames the militia for a rocket barrage Friday
that killed a U.S. defense contractor at a military compound near
Kirkuk, in northern Iraq. Officials said as many as 30 rockets were
fired in Friday’s assault.
Esper said the U.S. hit three of the
militia’s sites in western Iraq and two in eastern Syria, including
weapon depots and the militia’s command and control bases.
U.S.
Air Force F-15 Strike Eagles carried out the strikes and all the
aircraft safely returned to their home base, Esper said. At the
ammunition storage facilities that were struck, significant secondary
explosions were observed.
Pompeo, Esper and Gen. Mark Milley,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, flew to Palm Beach, Florida,
after the operation to brief President Donald Trump.
Esper said they discussed with Trump “other options that are available” to respond to Iran.
“I
would note also that we will take additional actions as necessary to
ensure that we act in our own self-defense and we deter further bad
behavior from militia groups or from Iran,” Esper, who was accompanied
by Pompeo and Milley, said in a brief statement to reporters in a
ballroom at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, where the president is on a more
than two-week winter break.
The national security officials did not answer any questions.
Pompeo
said the “decisive response” makes clear that the U.S. ”will not stand
for the Islamic Republic of Iran to take actions that put American men
and women in jeopardy.”
Trump was at Mar-a-Lago but did not appear
with his top national security officials. Shortly after Pompeo and
Esper spoke, he left for dinner at his private golf club in West Palm
Beach.
Iraq’s Joint Operations Command said in a statement that
three U.S. airstrikes on Sunday evening Iraq time hit the headquarters
of the Hezbollah Brigades at the Iraq-Syria border, killing four
fighters.
Iraq’s Hezbollah Brigades, a separate force from the
Lebanese group Hezbollah, operate under the umbrella of the
state-sanctioned militias known collectively as the Popular Mobilization
Forces. Many of them are supported by Iran.
The Popular Mobilization Forces said Sunday that the U.S. strikes killed at least 19 of Kataeb Hezbollah’s members.
Kataeb
Hezbollah is led by Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, one of Iraq’s most powerful
men. He once battled U.S. troops and is now the deputy head of the
Popular Mobilization Forces.
In 2009, the State Department linked
him to the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, designated a
foreign terrorist organization by President Donald Trump earlier this
year.
The U.S. maintains some 5,000 troops in Iraq. They are there
based on an invitation by the Iraqi government to assist and train in
the fight against the Islamic State group.
The militia strike and
U.S. counter-strike come as months of political turmoil roil Iraq. About
500 people have died in anti-government protests in recent months, most
of them demonstrators killed by Iraqi security forces.
The mass
uprisings prompted the resignation of Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi
late last month. Abdul-Mahdi remains for now in a caretaker capacity.
Abdul-Mahdi
had made no public comment on Friday’s militia attack but condemned the
U.S. retaliatory strike on Sunday. He called it a violation of Iraqi
sovereignty and a “dangerous escalation that threatens the security of
Iraq and the region.”
In a statement, Abdul-Mahdi said Defense
Secretary Mark Esper had called him about a half-hour before the U.S.
strikes to tell him of U.S. intentions to hit bases of the militia
suspected of being behind Friday’s rocket attack. Abdul-Mahdi said in
the statement he asked Esper to call off U.S. retaliation plans.
The statement said Iraqi President Barham Salih also received advance notice from a U.S. diplomat, and also asked unsuccessfully for Americans to call off it off.
Associated Press writers Darlene Superville in Palm Beach, Fla., and Zeina Karam in Beirut, Lebanon, contributed to this report.
This story has been corrected to show that about 500 people have died in recent anti-government protests, not nearly 600.