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<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\u2018Somewhere in the middle\u2019<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The past 24 hours, in which U.S. fighter jets also hit Houthi rebel drones in Yemen and Israel was suspected of killing an Iranian military adviser in Syria, will do little to tamp down rising tensions across the Middle East. The European Union\u2019s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, described the situation Saturday as \u201ca boiler that can explode.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is by far the most expansive military action we\u2019ve taken against Iran\u2019s proxies in Syria and Iraq to date \u2014 that makes this a significant development by itself,\u201d said Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, Washington\u2019s oldest think tank focusing on the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn terms of measuring this by how maximalist or minimalist we could have been, this sits somewhere in the middle, not a major campaign by any means, but a notable one that if followed by more could begin to send a deterrent message,\u201d Lister told NBC News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut for now, I\u2019d count on the militias feeling relatively confident that they\u2019ll be targeting Americans again not too long from now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The U.S. strikes are the latest salvo in the simmering, Middle East-wide unrest that has threatened to boil over since Hamas\u2019 Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in which some 1,200 people were killed, and Israel\u2019s subsequent war in Gaza, which has so far killed more than 27,000 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \uff08\u00a0A young boy looks at damage to a building following Israeli airstrikes in Rafah, Gaza, today. The U.S. has sought to avoid the war spreading.\uff09<\/p>\n\n\n\n A network of militant groups backed by Iran \u2014 the self-styled \u201cAxis of Resistance\u201d \u2014 has been launching attacks against Israel, the U.S. and international shipping, which the militants say is a protest against Israel\u2019s war and in support of the Palestinians. As part of this so-called axis, powerful Iran-backed militants have stepped up attacks against American forces across the Middle East, stationed there following the Syrian civil war and the military campaign against ISIS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There have been more than 160 attacks by these groups across Syria and Iraq, wounding American soldiers, including some who have suffered brain injuries. Then last week, a drone attack on a U.S. base in Jordan killed three American service members \u2014 prompting President Joe Biden to vow a forceful, multistage response, while simultaneously trying to avoid direct war with Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This came Friday night in the form of some 85 strikes against targets in Iraq and Syria linked either to Iranian militias or Iran\u2019s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, which is in Syria supporting President Bashar Assad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The heavily trailed U.S. operation gave ample time for Iranian military commanders and their allies to hunker down. A senior Iraqi official told NBC News on Wednesday that they had vacated sensitive sites and moved weapons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe are not trying to send a signal to anyone other than those who mean Americans harm,\u201d Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Sims II, director of operations of the Joint Staff, told journalists Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nonetheless some analysts did not see the strikes as a significant step up in any U.S. effort at deterrence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They appeared to be \u201cdifferent in terms of power, number of targets, and use of not only airstrikes but also cyberoperations. There could also be covert action elements that we don\u2019t know about,\u201d said Jason Brodsky, the policy director of the Washington-based group United Against Nuclear Iran. But, he added in a post on X, \u201cnothing that\u2019s public suggests to me anything of significant strategic value that was hit. While the quantity of targets may have increased, the quality has more or less stayed the same.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Experts say the advance warning may partly have been to give Iran and its proxies a bloody nose without triggering an escalatory response, especially in Iraq, where the U.S. has important bases and is trying to maintain ties to a Shiite-led government that is also close to Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Regardless, Iraq\u2019s response was scathing, setting up a verbal conflict between Washington and Baghdad, a government that still hosts U.S. troops following the 2003 invasion and subsequent fight against ISIS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The U.S. said it had warned Iraq in advance of the airstrikes, something Iraq denied while accusing Washington of killing 16 people in the country, including civilians, and having \u201cdeliberately deceived and falsified the facts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The senior U.S. administration official told NBC News this was not true. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t a huge heads up,\u201d the official said, which they said was to be expected given Iraq\u2019s relationship with Iranian-backed militias in the country. \u201cBut it is not accurate to say they weren\u2019t informed. Iraq is a sovereign nation and we respect their right to express their concerns, but then they shouldn\u2019t harbor these Iranian groups on Iraqi soil.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based watchdog, said 23 people had been killed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The current relationship between Iraq and Iran is a complex one, with Iraq politically dependent on the powerful, Iran-backed militias based there, but at the same time hosting the American troops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the most powerful of these militias, Kataib Hezbollah, has its \u201cfootprints\u201d on the deadly attack against U.S. forces in Jordan, the Pentagon said. Kataib Hezbollah said last week it would pause attacks against Americans in the region because it did not want to cause embarrassment for the Iraqi government, which had called on all sides for calm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But on Saturday, the militants hinted that this may yet change, posting a video to the Telegram messaging service quoting its military spokesman Jaafar al-Husseini, interviewed last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Americans will see days they will never forget throughout history,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \uff08The initial retaliatory strikes were \u201cnot a major campaign by any means, but a notable one that if followed by more could begin to send a deterrent message,\u201d one analyst said.\uff09 ERBIL, Iraq \u2014 The dozens of airstrikes launched by the United States late Friday are by far its biggest attacks against Iran-backed militants in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4591,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1997,1926,1750],"class_list":["post-4590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-iraq","tag-said","tag-strikes"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/13.png\")
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