Category Archives: US Military

US and UK hit 30 Houthi targets to further weaken Iran-backed groups

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Joint operation to further disable militias follows attacks on US and international interests amid war in Gaza

The United States and Britain struck at least 30 Houthi targets in Yemen on Saturday in another wave of assaults meant to further disable Iran-backed groups that have attacked US and international interests in response to the Israel-Hamas war.

Ships and fighter jets on Saturday launched strikes against the Houthis. It followed an air assault in Iraq and Syria on Friday targeting other Iran-backed militias and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in retaliation for the drone strike that killed three US troops – William Jerome Rivers, Kennedy Ladon Sanders and Breonna Alexsondria Moffett – in Jordan last weekend.

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US strikes will have disastrous consequences for region, warns Iraq

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Attacks on Friday also described as ‘a strategic mistake’ by Iran, which insisted no Revolutionary Guards were present in areas hit

The US reprisal strikes in Syria and Iraq will have disastrous consequences for the region, the military spokesman for the Iraqi prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, has warned. Maj Gen Yahya Rasool’s response was one of many from inside the Iraqi government that furiously condemned a violation of its sovereignty.

The US military launched airstrikes on Friday against more than 85 targets linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the militias it backs, in retaliation for last weekend’s drone attack in Jordan that killed three US troops. Iraq’s Anbar Operations Command reported 16 fatalities and 25 injuries, but no official death toll has been issued.

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Houthis face ‘further consequences’, Austin says after latest strikes – as it happened

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At least 13 Iranian-backed fighters have been killed in strikes in eastern Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has said.

The airstrikes destroyed 17 positions sheltering Iranian militias in Al-Mayadeen and Al-Bokamal near the border between Syria and Iraq, in addition to airstrikes targeting positions near Deir ez-Zor city, it said.

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US launches airstrikes in Iraq and Syria in retaliation for deadly drone attack

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President says ‘If you harm an American, we will respond’ as US forces strike in what is expected to be first of multiple attacks

Joe Biden has warned “if you harm an American, we will respond” as US forces attacked more than 80 targets in Iraq and Syria in a wide-ranging air assault on sites belonging to Iran-linked militias and Tehran’s Revolutionary Guard.

The US president said the strikes had been launched in retaliation for the drone strike that killed three US troops in Jordan, adding: “Our response began today. It will continue at times and places of our choosing.”

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US orders reprisal strikes against Iranian-backed militia

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Strikes expected to take place in Syria and possibly Iraq, after three US soldiers were killed at a base in Jordan

The US has ordered a series of reprisal strikes to be launched over more than one day against an Iranian-backed militia, the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, has said.

Austin said all drones in the region attacking the US were of Iranian origin. The retaliatory strikes are expected to hit militia in Syria and possibly Iraq, though Austin did not specify the timing or precise location.

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Israel’s campaign in Gaza ‘plausibly’ amounts to genocide, US court finds

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But federal judge in California says lawsuit aimed at stopping US military support for Israel is outside court’s jurisdiction

A federal court in California has ruled that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza “plausibly” amounts to genocide, but dismissed a case aimed at stopping US military support for Israel as being outside the court’s jurisdiction.

“There are rare cases in which the preferred outcome is inaccessible to the court. This is one of those cases,” the US district court in the northern district of California ruled. “The court is bound by precedent and the division of our coordinate branches of government to abstain from exercising jurisdiction in this matter.

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US military stockpiling supplies in Australia in readiness for any confrontation with China

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American war planners used joint Talisman Sabre exercises to position equipment in northern Victoria

When US and Australian troops practised amphibious landings, ground combat and air operations last year, they drew headlines about the allies deepening defence cooperation to counter China’s growing military ambitions.

But for US war planners preparing for a potential conflict over Taiwan, the high-profile Talisman Sabre exercises had a far more discrete value: they helped create new stockpiles of military equipment that were established in Australia after the drills ended in August, US officials said.

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Iran not seeking war with US but ‘not afraid of it’, says military chief

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Head of Islamic Revolutionary Guards defiant as US prepares ‘very consequential response’ to drone attack on Jordan base

The head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) has vowed the country is not afraid of war with the US, as the Pentagon weighs how directly to respond to the killing of three US servicemen in a drone attack in Jordan.

The IRGC commander-in-chief, Maj Gen Hossein Salami, said: “We hear some threats from American officials about targeting Iran. We tell them that you tested us and we know each other. We do not leave any threat unanswered, and we do not look for war, but we are not afraid of it. This is the well-known truth.”

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Biden beware: US must fully consider response to soldiers’ deaths – or risk Iran escalation

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President is facing pressure from Republicans after numerous attacks on US bases by Iran’s proxies

The killing of three American soldiers in Jordan and the wounding of dozens more, allegedly by an Iranian-backed group, is a red line that was always likely to be crossed in what is becoming an increasingly dangerous region.

The US had up to this weekend avoided fatalities in more than 150 attacks on its military bases by Iranian proxies since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war after the 7 October attacks, but that luck could not last for ever. The question now is what lies on the far side of that red line.

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Pentagon mulls response to Jordan drone strike amid fears for Gaza ceasefire efforts

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Lloyd Austin says president ‘will not tolerate attacks on US forces’, but Qatar warns that reprisal attacks could undermine Israel hostage talks

US defense secretary Lloyd Austin has vowed to take “all necessary actions” to defend US troops after Iran-backed militants killed three US troops and wounded dozens more in a drone attack on a US base in Jordan.

“The president and I will not tolerate attacks on US forces and we will take all necessary actions to defend the US and our troops,” Austin said at the Pentagon on Monday.

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Jordan drone strike: who are Islamic Resistance in Iraq and what is Tower 22?

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The group that claimed responsibility for the deadly attack on a US military base in Jordan is a loose coalition of Iranian-backed militias

Three US service personnel were killed and 34 wounded on Sunday after a drone hit a residential quarters at a military outpost in Jordan known as Tower 22, which lies on the border between Iraq and Syria.

It is the first time US soldiers have been killed by hostile fire since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, after an estimated 150 attacks by Iranian-based militias on American bases in Iraq and Syria since 7 October.

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Three US service members killed in ‘despicable’ drone attack in Jordan, Biden says

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Iranian backed militia took credit for attack that injured 34 troops and killed first US soldiers in battle since start of the Gaza conflict

The spectre of a direct US-Iranian military conflict drew closer on Sunday when the US president Joe Biden announced three US servicemen have been killed and more than 34 injured following a drone attack on a US service base on the border of Jordan and Syria. Biden blamed Iranian backed militia mainly based in Iraq for the “despicable” attack and vowed revenge.

Responsibility for Saturday’s attack on Tower 22, a military outpost on the Jordanian Syrian Iraqi borders was claimed by the Iranian backed umbrella group Islamic Resistance, and the US made no attempt to disguise its belief that Iran was ultimately responsible.

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US navy escorts cargo ships to safety after Houthi missile attack from Yemen

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Two vessels forced to turn around as Iran-aligned group continues strikes against Red Sea shipping

Two ships sailing close to the Gulf of Aden were forced to seek the support of the US navy after explosions were heard nearby, as the Houthi group kept up their assault on commercial shipping off the coast of Yemen.

The Houthis have said their attacks are in solidarity with the Palestinians as Israel bombards Gaza. The ships belonging to the Danish shipping company Maersk came under attack from three anti-ship missiles near the Bab el-Mandeb strait, the US central command (Centcom) said. No damage was caused either to the Maersk Detroit or the Maersk Chesapeake.

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Iraq accuses US of ‘reckless escalation’ of regional violence after latest strikes

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Pentagon calls overnight attacks ‘necessary and proportionate’, after US personnel were injured in a weekend attack in Iraq

US strikes against militias in Iraq have prompted the most scathing criticism yet from Baghdad, with the prime minister’s office accusing Washington of contributing to a “reckless escalation” of regional violence.

The Pentagon announced earlier on Wednesday that it had carried out overnight retaliatory strikes against three facilities linked to Iran-backed militias in response to its own forces coming under attack at an Iraqi airbase at the weekend.

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Two US Navy Seals declared dead after raid to seize Iranian weapons bound for Houthis

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Seals from USS Lewis Puller went overboard during mission off coast of Somalia to seize Iranian weapons, according to US military

Two US Navy Seals who went missing during an operation to seize Iranian weapons bound for Yemen’s Houthi rebels have been declared dead after a 10-day search failed to locate them, the US military has said.

US Central Command (Centcom) had previously said that two Seals who were reported as lost at sea were involved in the 11 January operation, in which the elite special operations personnel boarded a dhow off the coast of Somalia and seized missile components made in Iran.

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Gravesites from former Black cemetery discovered at Florida air force base

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Officials say search will continue after as many as 121 unmarked graves were located at MacDill air force base in Tampa

As many as 121 unmarked graves in a former Black cemetery have been discovered at a US air force base in Florida, military officials confirmed.

A nonintrusive archaeological survey performed over the past two years at the MacDill air force base in Tampa identified 58 probable graves and 63 possible graves, base officials said on Thursday, WFTS-TV reported.

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Houthi-US fight may be imbalanced but that doesn’t mean it will be brief

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US has military might but rebels can still shut down shipping, spelling prolonged suffering for Yemeni civilians

The latest round of US bombing against Houthi targets in Yemen comes as little surprise, and raises with it the prospect of an extended military campaign affecting a nation already impoverished by years of war.

The assault implies an effective recognition by Washington that any effort to try to completely halt the attacks on western shipping in the southern Red Sea will require repeated intervention because of the Yemeni group’s capacity and determination to resist.

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‘Different rules’: special policies keep US supplying weapons to Israel despite alleged abuses

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Revealed: review of internal state department documents shows special mechanisms have been used to shield Israel from US human rights laws

Top US officials quietly reviewed more than a dozen incidents of alleged gross violations of human rights by Israeli security forces since 2020, but have gone to great lengths to preserve continued access to US weapons for the units responsible for the alleged violations, contributing – former US officials say – to the sense of impunity with which Israel has approached its war in Gaza.

An estimated 24,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed by Israeli forces since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, a death toll that has spurred condemnation of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US president Joe Biden, who has been criticized for failing to rein in Israel’s “indiscriminate” bombing of Gaza.

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The Houthis and the Red Sea crisis – podcast

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Attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea by the Houthi rebel group in Yemen have been met with airstrikes from the UK and US. Patrick Wintour reports

Since the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October and Israel’s military response in Gaza, there has been an effort by western leaders led by the US to avoid the conflict spreading to the wider region. That attempt looks increasingly tenuous now. US and UK airstrikes have targeted the Houthi rebel group in Yemen after a series of attacks by the group on commercial ships in the Red Sea.

As Patrick Wintour, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, tells Michael Safi, the Houthis say they are targeting Israeli-linked ships in an attempt to force a ceasefire. In doing so they are are positioning themselves as the foremost champions of Palestinians in the region. In reality, they have struck shipping interests beyond Israel and ignored warnings from the US to desist. Now, with Washington promising further strikes if necessary, the threat of a wider regional escalation is growing and with it the danger of a far more deadly conflict.

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US military says it seized Iranian weapons bound for Houthis

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Search still under way for the two Seals involved in mission targeting supply of arms to Yemeni rebels

US Navy Seals boarded a boat heading for Yemen and seized Iranian-made missile components and other weaponry bound for Houthi forces, in an operation in which two Seal commandos went missing, the US military has said.

US Central Command (Centcom) posted pictures of the missile parts on X, including what appeared to be the components of a complete small missile, rocket motors and guidance systems, as well as a photograph of the small cargo vessel that was allegedly carrying the arms.

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