US launches airstrikes in Iraq in retaliation for rocket attack that killed three

Pentagon says attacks targeted Iran-backed militia, which it blames for Wednesday’s killing of two US soldiers and UK servicewoman

Guardian staff and agencies

The United States had carried out strikes against five Iran-backed militia weapons storage facilities in Iraq, a day after a deadly rocket attack killed two American soldiers and one British service member at a base north of Baghdad .

“The United States conducted defensive precision strikes against Kataib Hezbollah facilities across Iraq,” a Pentagon statement said.

“These weapons storage facilities include facilities that housed weapons used to target US and coalition troops,” it said.

The strikes were “defensive, proportional and in direct response to the threat posed by Iranian-backed Shia militia groups,” the statement added.

The strikes marked a rapid escalation in tensions with Tehran and its proxy groups in Iraq, just two months after Iran carried out a massive ballistic missile attack against American troops at a base in Iraq.

They came just hours after top US defence leaders threatened retaliation for the Wednesday rocket attack, making clear that they knew who did it and that the attackers would be held accountable.

Defence Secretary Mark Esper told reporters at the Pentagon earlier on Thursday that President Donald Trump had given him the authority to take whatever action he deemed necessary.

“We’re going to take this one step at a time, but we’ve got to hold the perpetrators accountable,” Esper said. “You don’t get to shoot at our bases and kill and wound Americans and get away with it.”

At the White House, Trump had also hinted that a US retaliation could be coming, telling reporters: “We’ll see what the response is.” And General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Pentagon reporters the US knew “with a high degree of certainty” who launched the attack.

Asked if any counterattack could include a strike inside Iran, Esper said: “We are focused on the group that we believe perpetrated this in Iraq.”

Two US troops and one British service member were killed and 14 other personnel were wounded when 18 rockets hit the base Wednesday. The US military said the 107 mm Katyusha rockets were fired from a truck launcher that was found by Iraqi security forces near the base after the attack.

The Briton killed on Wednesday, was named as L/Cpl Brodie Gillon, a reservist who served as a frontline medic with the Scottish and North Irish Yeomanry, and volunteered for a deployment in Iraq this year.

US officials have not publicly said what group they believe launched the rocket attack, but Kataib Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Shia militia group, was the likely perpetrator. The US strikes, which came in the middle of the night in Iraq, targeted that group.

Kataib Hezbollah was responsible for a late December rocket attack on a military base in Kirkuk that killed a US contractor, prompting American military strikes in response.

That in turn led to protests at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. They were followed 3 January by a US airstrike that killed Iran’s most powerful military officer, General Qassem Soleimani, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a leader of the Iran-backed militias in Iraq, of which Kataib Hezbollah is a member. In response to the Soleimani killing, Iran launched a massive ballistic missile attack on 8 January, at al-Asad air base in Iraq, that resulted in traumatic brain injuries to more than 100 American troops.

On Thursday, Esper and Milley said they spoke with their British counterparts about the attack, but declined to provide details.

Asked why none of the rockets was intercepted, Milley said there are no systems on the base capable of defending against that type of attack.

He also said the 14 injured personnel were a mix of US and allied troops as well as contractors, and they will also be monitored for possible traumatic brain injury in the wake of the blasts.

Topics:Iraq/Middle East and North Africa/news