A piece of breaking news coming out of the Middle East, the USA has launched air strikes in retaliation for an attack on a US base in Jordan that killed three soldiers.
Defense officials are telling us that the retaliatory air has begun in Iraq and Syria against Iranian-backed militias something that the white house has been warning they would do. They have now begun and this operation has been pretty clear. Now telegraphed for days since three US soldiers were killed in Jordan in that drone attack on Sunday. Now this operation has begun and kept in mind Administration officials have made it clear that this is not a one-off that will extend beyond today over days will be a campaign and it will involve multiple strikes and other operations but right now we can say that the retaliatory strikes have begun in Iraq and Syria against those Iranian-backed militias that have launched more than 160 attacks on US forces since October 7th since that war started between Israel and Hamas.
Further details on strike in the targeting in Iraq and Syria…
They are not releasing those details yet but judging by keeping in mind we’ve had previous air strikes in the past limited air strikes against those militias and they tend to go after weapons depots. They go after different sites used by militias including command and control sites anywhere where they believe they can degrade the capabilities of these militias which are finance-trained and armed by Iran and have been a thorn in the side of the US forces. There, for years but there is no indication at this moment that the US is taking any action inside Iranian territory, so these strikes are taking place in Iraq and Syria where those militia groups are based in where they operate but there is challenge. Here once the US warned that it would respond to that drone attack that has given the militias time to evacuate and to hide in conceal their weapons and their capabilities too.
Unveiling the shadows, the strike looks like.
They’re going to see a much larger scale of air strikes than we’ve seen up until now, they were quite limited, and calibrated over the past few months. This is going to be a much larger scale involving a lot more aircraft, a lot more missiles, and dozens of targets. Judging by what they’ve been including in advance and then keeping in mind too at some point. It is fair to assume that there will be strikes against the hours in Yemen, who’ve been attacking those commercial ships in the Red Sea in the Gulf of Aiden, there are no indications that any operations right now targeting the Houthis in Yemen who have been attacking those commercial ships in the red sea.
But it’s fair to assume that will come as part of the strike…..?
Since the strike on Tower 22 with pretty significant us casualties three were killed in action more than 50 are now wounded in action. US intelligence has been blanketing the region trying to see where the threats are moving, all trying to disguise themselves they turned off all their radios, the houthis have turned off their radars in particular but we’ve been watching them moving so. This is going to be a multi-week probably response hopefully decentralized it will involve both US Navy and Air Forces power. There may be classified aspects to it in other words Delta Force going into Syria or other places and snatching some of these leaders never mind cyber warfare and economic action so as Secretary Austin started we got to degrade capabilities and not just do a one-off campaign.
What Defense Secretary Austin said yesterday on the strike…
He said specifically it’s time to take away even more capability than we’ve taken in the past and give us a sense of scope of what it might look like well it’s the toughest target is still at the Red Sea enormous Economic Consequences it affecting World Trade, it’s driving up prices the Egyptians remain mute with their Suez Canal losing revenue. It’s a third of the country, it’s a Shia militia organization very closely allied with Iran it’s got some fairly significant weapons both ballistic and drone missiles and it definitely can strike in this very constrained Waterway International shipping that one’s a real challenge. The terrorist organizations in both Syria and Iraq.
https://x.com/NationalIndNews/status/1753544968055009421?s=20
It will have to be over time we’ll have to watch for them every time they move they’ll get struck but even there we have unusual problems. Iraq vehemently opposes any US military action inside Iraq. They’ve there 2500 troops with part of the international coalition counter ISIS in nature at the request of the Iraqi government. The good news is that they’re not going into Iran with strikes yet.
Sense of how to define success with a mission like
That’s the $64 million question for sure I think that to some extent distraught listening to people say well now they’ve killed some US soldiers we got to act We’ve had 160 odd strikes on US forces you simply cannot take away the inherent right of self-defense and immediate action and decentralized responses if you’re going to keep military forces deployed in such a dangerous environment so hopefully that those days are behind us and we now have more active protection of the forces themselves but the important question you raise is what is the strategic purpose for these deployments because bombing militia units in and Shia militia units in Iraq is not a long term solution to anything.