Op-Ed
Yesterday, U.S. forces launched aerial strikes on sites controlled by the Kataib Hezbollah (KH) resistance group in Iraq in response to its attacks on U.S. occupation forces in Iraq.
According to a statement released by U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) via X, the attacks took place beginning at 12:15 AM Iraqi time on January 24, 2024.
“U.S. CENTCOM forces conducted unilateral airstrikes against three facilities used by Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia group and other Iran-affiliated groups in Iraq,” the announcement read. “These strikes targeted KH headquarters, storage, and training locations for rocket, missile, and one-way attack UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle, or drone] capabilities.”
The Pentagon confirmed those airstrikes struck Katib Hezbollah facilities south of Baghdad in Jurf al-Sakhar, at al-Qaim, and in a third location which has not been specified.
“At President Biden’s direction, U.S. military forces conducted necessary and proportionate strikes on three facilities used by the Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia group and other Iran-affiliated groups in Iraq,” said U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in a written statement of his own after the attacks took place. “These precision strikes are in direct response to a series of escalatory attacks against U.S. and coalition personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-sponsored militias.”
“These precision strikes are in direct response to a series of escalatory attacks against U.S. and Coalition personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-sponsored militias,” the Defense Secretary continued.
The “escalatory attacks” Austin was referring to happened around 6:30 pm on January 20. Allegedly launched by the Kataib Hezbollah militia, they were focused on the U.S. military’s Ain al-Asad Air Base, located in the governorate/province of Anbar in Iraq.
Al Anbar is the largest province in Iraq. Its capital is Al Anbar, its largest cities are Fallujah and Haditha, and it borders Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. Its population is dominated by Sunni Muslims.
According to Pentagon sources, the attacks on the U.S. airbase came as a rapid-fire burst. Estimates are that seven short-range ballistic missiles and a minimum of ten rockets were fired on the base. Two of the missiles managed to make it through to their targets after evading the U.S.’ Patriot missiles and air defense installations at the site.
This is considered by the U.S. military to be among the most serious attacks on U.S. armed forces personnel since the October 7 war phase began.
Besides damage to the base, the airstrikes from Kataib Hezbollah reportedly resulted in the injury of at least one Iraqi officer, and at least four American service personnel. Though the extent of all injuries and damage has not been verified, all four of the Americans hurt underwent emergency treatment for traumatic brain injuries, after the attack.
Though the mass genocide being carried out by fascist Israel in Gaza which has killed more than 26,000 so far has overshadowed reports of attacks like both of these outside Israel and Gaza, these attacks in Iraq and beyond have been growing in number and intensity since the October 7 beginning of this phase of the war by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
From the American military perspective, there have been 151 attacks on U.S. installations located in Iraq and Syria. Most of those are alleged to have been carried out by local Islamic militias with support from Iran.
Not mentioned in most American accounts are the numerous U.S. and Israeli attacks carried out in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria, principally against targets the U.S. and the Israeli government claims are fully justified attack sites.
Among those were the Israeli assassination strikes which killed senior Hamas deputy official Saleh al-Arouri and others at an office building in Beirut, Lebanon, on January 2, 2024; a January 3, 2024, a terrorist remotely-triggered bombing carried out by Israeli Mossad forces against mourners near the Iranian tomb of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps General Qassem Soleimani which killed over one hundred, on the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Soleimani at U.S. hands while he was in Iraq; and the U.S. drone assassination on January 4 of Mushtaq Jawad Kazim al-Jawari, alleged by American intelligence officials as a senior officer in the Iranian-supported Harakat al-Nujaba Islamic militia organization, in Baghdad.
In each of the above cases, the provocateurs involved were from the U.S. and Israel. In the murders of al-Arouri and al-Jawari, the attacks also took place in sovereign territory of countries not at war with either the U.S. or Israel.
In the case of al-Jawari’s killing, despite that the government of Iraq protested fiercely that this was a direct violation of agreements already in place with the U.S. not to do such things without prior notification, the Department of Defense said the attack was “necessary and proportionate”, a stock phrase which has become the standard excuse for launching aggressive attacks across borders in the Middle East these days.
The State Department also said al-Jawari was killed to protect American forces in Iraq, which they said were there at the invitation of the puppet President installed by the U.S. The rest of Iraq, including its Council of Representatives (Parliament) has been trying to end the U.S. occupation for many years.
These are the same sorts of justifications which are being used by the United States for the intensifying and every day more deadly assaults on Yemen, one of the poorest and most at-risk populations in the world, as it claims it is “necessary and proportionate” to bomb them while also piling up substantial collateral civilian deaths. It is all appropriate, an array of American spokespersons continue to say, to balance out the almost entirely pure economic harm the Houthi forces in Yemen have caused by implementing a blockade of Israel connected shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
It must also be remembered that shipping blockade could be easily brought to a halt not with bombs but with the same alliance of U.S.-led western forces directing Israel to bring an immediate halt to their wholesale genocidal obliteration of Gaza.
Despite that, the insanity and imbalance of the war in Gaza (and, more broadly in the Middle East) grows far worse, with dismedia (disinformation media) press coverage continuing to be grossly biased in favor of actions being taken by fascist Israel and its colony, the United States.
Consider that yesterday, a day in which at least 21 Israeli war criminals were killed by Hamas forces in Israeli-occupied Gaza as those same forces were out to continue the Palestinian genocide, most coverage refers to this as the “most deadly” day for the Israelis yet during the war in Gaza. Somehow the hundreds of people those same forces have slaughtered sometimes daily through the shelling of hospitals, schools, and apartment complexes are considered far less significant than the deaths of 21 IDF soldiers as they carried out their own murderous assaults.
Israel has already pledged there will be a “proportionate response” for those 21 IDF troops who died. They are carrying it out now, with a death toll in and around the southern city of Khan Younis just in the few hours that followed the Hamas defensive attack. Three of the biggest hospitals in the area — Nasser, Al Amal, and Al Aqsa — are being ordered to be evacuated by Israeli forces as Netanyahu’s forces ready their destruction.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), Israeli forces murdered some 200 Palestinians just on January 22 and 23.
The bloodbath throughout the region will not stop until the principal perpetrators behind it, Israel and its U.S. and other western backers, choose to bring a halt to the carnage in Gaza, and in the Middle East as a whole. However, there can be no forgetting or forgiving the crimes of fascist Israel and its supporters. The monstrous war criminals will face justice, eventually.