Iraq warns Middle East is on ‘brink of the abyss’ after US strikes | EUROtoday

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The Iraqi authorities has warned that the Middle East is “on the brink of the abyss” after retaliatory US airstrikes reportedly killed dozens of troopers and civilians.

On Friday, the US carried out strikes on 85 targets at seven services in Iraq and Syria in response to a drone assault at a distant base in Jordan that killed three American service members and injured round 40 others on 28 January.

The US strikes killed nearly 40 folks, in line with a Reuters report. Shortly after the assault, Iraqi authorities spokesperson, Bassem Al-Awadi, warned that the assaults risked destabilizing all the Middle East.

“This aggressive strike will put security in Iraq and the region on the brink of the abyss, and it also contradicts efforts to establish the required stability,” he wrote in a publish on X, previously Twitter, within the early hours of Saturday.

Mr Awadi claimed that the US “deliberately deceived and falsified the facts, by announcing prior coordination to commit this aggression, which is a false claim aimed at misleading international public opinion and disavowing legal responsibility for this rejected crime in accordance with all international laws”.

The US strikes happened over the course of half an hour, and several other had been carried out by B-1B bombers flying greater than 6,000 miles from Dyess Air Force Base in Texas, NBC News reported.

Three American troopers had been killed in Jordan final week throughout an assault on US and coalition forces by Iran-backed militias, the US authorities stated.

The our bodies of Sgt William Jerome Rivers, Specialist Kennedy Ladon Sanders, and Specialist Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, all from Georgia, had been returned to the US on Friday. President Joe Biden took half within the dignified switch at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

National Security Council spokesperson, John Kirby, stated on Friday that the US airstrike targets had been chosen primarily based on intelligence that linked them to assaults in opposition to American troops, in line with Axios.

Earlier this week, the US retaliated for assaults on worldwide transport vessels within the Red Sea by Houthi rebels in Yemen. A authorities official stated that the US struck as much as 10 unmanned drones in Yemen that had been about to launch, Voice of America reported on Wednesday.

Following Friday’s US air strikes, the Iraqi international ministry known as the American embassy in Baghdad to “deliver an official note of protest regarding the American attack that targeted military and civilian sites in the Akashat and Al-Qaim regions yesterday evening,” the Iraqi News Agency reported.

Iraq’s prime minister, Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani, additionally claimed that it was “lies” that the US had given his nation superior warning in regards to the strikes.

The US contradicted this declare. “It wasn’t a huge heads up,” a US official advised NBC News. “But it is not accurate to say they weren’t informed.”

After the strikes, US protection secretary, Lloyd Austin, stated that President Biden had directed additional actions in opposition to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and its linked militia teams.

However, he additionally stated that the US isn’t in search of “conflict in the Middle East”.

“This is the start of our response,” Mr Austin stated in a press release. “We do not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else, but the president and I will not tolerate attacks on American forces.”

Officials in Iraq and Syria stated that these killed included troopers in addition to civilians. An Iraqi navy spokesperson stated that the strikes had been a “threat that will drag Iraq and the region into unforeseen consequences”.

Hussein al-Mosawi, a spokesperson for Harakat al-Nujaba, one of many important Iraqi militia teams backed by Iran, advised the Associated Press that the US “must understand that every action elicits a reaction”.

However, he added that “we do not wish to escalate or widen regional tensions” and that the websites struck in Iraq had been principally “devoid of fighters and military personnel at the time of the attack”. Such feedback may present cowl if the group chooses to not launch a significant counterattack.

Iran Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Nasser Kanaani, stated that the retaliatory motion was a “strategic mistake” that may solely result in an “escalation of tension and instability in the region”.

Violence has flared throughout the Middle East for the reason that 7 October assault on Israel by Hamas, the Palestinian militant group ruling Gaza, which killed 1,200 folks and noticed 240 folks kidnapped. Hamas has been designated as a terror organisation by the US and the EU.

Israel’s response in Gaza has killed greater than 27,000 folks and left greater than 66,000 folks wounded, in line with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry.

Arab nations have taken motion to indicate assist for Gaza. Late final yr, there have been widespread protests in Casablanca, Algiers, Tunis, Cairo, Amman, Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad, and Manama in assist of the Palestinians. Many protesters in Arab nations have known as on their governments to do extra to push again in opposition to Israel.