The U.S. carried out airstrikes in eastern Syria against two facilities used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps “and affiliated groups,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement on Thursday night. The “precision self-defense strikes” were in retaliation for more than a dozen drone and missile attacks on U.S. forces by Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria in the last 10 days. Those attacks have shown little sign of abating, according to U.S. officials, and President Joe Biden “directed today’s action to make clear that the United States will not tolerate such attacks and will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests,” Austin said. The operations, carried out by Air Force F-16s, come a day after a news conference where Biden warned Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, that he “should be prepared” for an American response should the attacks continue. “It has nothing to do with Israel,” Biden added.
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