What he probably heard was the sound of seven 500-pound bombs exploding against an enclosure near the border. The site, according to the Pentagon, was used by two Iraqi militias affiliated with Iran, Kata’ib Hezbollah and Kata’ib Sayyid Al-Shuhada.
Before and after the satellite images published by Maxar Technologies, a space technology company, it is clearly shown how much destruction those bombs produced.
The “before” image shows an enclosure, just over a third of a kilometer (about 370 yards) from the Iraqi border, containing a dozen buildings of various sizes. In the picture “after”, almost all the buildings have been destroyed and the dirt in and around the site was blackened by the explosions.
It is unclear how many militiamen died. Hezbollah’s Kata’ib only recognized one dead, without specifying where he died on the Iraqi-Syrian border. A U.S. official said they died “up to a handful,” while other reports say 17 to 22 people died.
The Pentagon says the strike was a U.S. response to a series of recent rocket and mortar attacks on U.S. and coalition positions in Iraq. On February 15, a series of rockets crashed on the grounds of Erbil International Airport and in residential areas of the city, killing a contractor while injuring several U.S. members and Iraqi civilians. The Baghdad Green Zone, where the US embassy is located, has been a common target of mortar and rocket fire. Kata’ib Hezbollah has repeatedly denied any involvement in the attacks and did so again in a statement released on Friday.
Pentagon officials told CNN that the target area was unrelated to the attacks, but Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said he was “confident” that they would be used by the militias themselves. U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq with rocket attacks.
The armed groups that allegedly use it, Kata’ib Hezbollah and Kata’ib Sayyid Al-Shuhada, are just two of a myriad of militias that gained prominence during the war against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, filling the void left by an Iraqi army. that was in full retreat.
I spent a great deal of time in 2015 and 2016 with some of these militias as they headed north from Baghdad. Some were well organized and disciplined, others were radical and volatile.
Their commanders were never shy about the support they received from Iran.
“Yes, we declare it to the world, we have Iranian advisers,” Hadi Al-Amari, a senior commander of the Iranian Badr Brigades, told me in 2015 on the front lines outside the city of Tikrit, then under the control of the ‘EI. “We are proud of them and we deeply appreciate their participation with us.”
Nearby, I came across an Iranian in combat, who told me with a broken Arab that he was volunteering.
A militia commander told me he told me at the time, “It was better to have four Iranian advisers on the front line than 400 American advisers sitting in the green zone of Baghdad.”
Since then, Iran-backed Iraqi militias have become increasingly powerful, while relations between Washington and Tehran have deteriorated dramatically.
The United States is now in a situation where it hopes to make it clear that it will not tolerate further attacks by Iran-backed militias on its positions in Iraq, but at the same time wants to reopen a dialogue with Iran. Sending this message without burning the bridges you are trying to build in Tehran will not be an easy task.
Friday’s strike was the first known military action taken by the Biden administration, making it the seventh consecutive U.S. administration to use military force in the Middle East.
The administrations arrive in Washington. The Washington administrations go. Some things, however, never change.