DOVER – The US military bombed elite Iranian forces and pro-Iran groups in Iraq and Syria in retaliation for the deaths of three of its soldiers at a base in Jordan.
“The airstrikes used more than 125 pieces of precision munitions,” said the military command for the Middle East, Centcom, on social media.
It specified that the targets included command and intelligence centers, as well as rocket, missile and drone storage facilities belonging to militias and Iranian forces “that facilitated attacks against US and coalition forces.”
Joe Biden had promised to respond to the deadly drone attack carried out on Sunday near the border with Syria and attributed by Washington to groups backed by Iran.
The Pentagon stated that Friday’s attacks They mobilized numerous fighter aircraft, including long-range bombers, and targeted more than 85 targets.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH) indicated that “at least 13 pro-Iran fighters were killed” in bombings in eastern Syria.
In recent days, the White House stated that Biden is not in favor of a regional escalation or an open conflict with Iran, so the retaliation will be multiple, against different objectives and staggered over time.
US forces in the Middle East have suffered numerous attacks since the start of the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
military honors
The bombings occurred on the same day that the bodies of soldiers William Jerome Rivers, Kennedy Ladon Sanders and Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, from the state of Georgia (south) who died on Sunday, were received with honors at the Dover base (Delaware, northeast).
Following a military ritual to the millimeter, the coffins emerged one by one from a military transport plane and were loaded into a vehicle.
As tradition dictates, the army also takes care of the language: it calls it a “solemn transfer” instead of a “ceremony” and speaks of “boxes” instead of “coffins.”
The “solemn transfer” was made in the presence of the president, the first lady, Jill Biden, and senior officials, such as the head of the Pentagon, Lloyd Austin.
Under a cloudy sky, they watched the coffins pass in absolute silence, with their hands on their hearts.
Beyond the military rigor is the emotion and pain of the families who saw, for the first time, the coffins containing the mortal remains of their loved ones.
At the same location, Joe and Jill Biden attended the repatriation of the bodies of US service members killed in an attack at Kabul airport on August 26, 2021, during the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Reviews
This moment will not end the avalanche of Republican criticism against him.
“He had to wait until people died to say ‘okay, maybe we have to do something,’ are you kidding me?” Nikki Haley, candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, attacked on Thursday.
His rival, former President Donald Trump, the great favorite, has attacked Biden’s “weakness.”
Source: AFP
