President Joe Biden solutions a reporter’s query as he walks from Marine One upon arrival on the South Lawn of the White House, Dec. 20, 2023, in Washington.

Alex Brandon/AP

cover caption

toggle caption

Alex Brandon/AP

President Joe Biden solutions a reporter’s query as he walks from Marine One upon arrival on the South Lawn of the White House, Dec. 20, 2023, in Washington.

Alex Brandon/AP

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden ordered the U.S. army to hold out retaliatory strikes towards Iranian-backed militia teams after three U.S. servicemembers had been injured in a drone assault in northern Iraq.

National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson mentioned one of many U.S. troops suffered vital accidents within the assault that occurred earlier Monday. The Iranian-backed militia Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated teams, underneath an umbrella of Iranian-backed militants, claimed credit score for the assault that utilized a one-way assault drone

Biden, who’s spending Christmas on the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, was alerted in regards to the assault by White House nationwide safety adviser Jake Sullivan shortly after it occurred on Monday and ordered the Pentagon and his high nationwide safety aides to organize response choices to the assault on Erbil Air Base.

Sullivan consulted with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Biden’s deputy nationwide safety adviser, Jon Finer, was with the president at Camp David and convened high aides to assessment choices, in response to a U.S. official, who was not approved to remark publicly and requested anonymity.

Within hours, Biden convened his nationwide safety crew for a name by which Austin and Gen. CQ Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefed Biden on the response choices. Biden opted to focus on three places utilized by Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated teams, the official mentioned.

The U.S. strikes had been carried out at about 4:45 a.m. on Tuesday in Iraq, lower than 13 hours after the U.S. personnel had been attacked. According to U.S. Central Command, the retaliatory strikes on the three websites, “destroyed the targeted facilities and likely killed a number of Kataib Hezbollah militants.”

“The President places no higher priority than the protection of American personnel serving in harm’s way,” Watson mentioned. “The United States will act at a time and in a manner of our choosing should these attacks continue.”

The newest assault on U.S. troops follows months of escalating threats and actions towards American forces within the area for the reason that Oct. 7 Hamas assault on Israel that sparked the devastating warfare in Gaza.

The harmful back-and-forth strikes have escalated since Iranian-backed militant teams underneath the umbrella group referred to as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq and Syria started placing U.S. amenities Oct. 17, the date {that a} blast at a hospital in Gaza killed lots of. Iranian-backed militias have carried out dozens of assaults on U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria for the reason that begin of the Israel-Hamas warfare greater than two months in the past.

The U.S. has additionally blamed Iran, which has funded and skilled Hamas, for assaults by Yemen’s Houthi militants towards business and army vessels by means of a vital transport choke level within the Red Sea.

The Biden administration has sought to stop the Israel-Hamas warfare from spiraling right into a wider regional battle that both opens up new fronts of Israeli preventing or that attracts the U.S. in instantly. The administration’s measured response — the place not each try on American troops has been met with a counterattack — has drawn criticism from Republicans.

The U.S. has 1000’s of troops in Iraq coaching Iraqi forces and combating remnants of the Islamic State group, and lots of in Syria, totally on the counter-IS mission. They have come underneath dozens of assaults, although as but none deadly, for the reason that warfare started on Oct. 7, with the U.S. attributing duty to Iran-backed teams.

“While we do not seek to escalate conflict in the region, we are committed and fully prepared to take further necessary measures to protect our people and our facilities,” Austin mentioned in an announcement.