US air strikes in Syria encourage terror in region: Iranian official

TEHERAN • The US air strikes against Iran-backed militias in eastern Syria encourage terrorism in the region, Iran's top security official Ali Shamkhani has said.

Washington said the strikes on positions of the Kataeb Hizbollah paramilitary group along the Iraqi border were in response to rocket attacks against United States targets in Iraq.

"America's recent action strengthens and expands the activities of the terrorist Daesh (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS) in the region," Mr Shamkhani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said in remarks to visiting Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein yesterday.

"The attack on anti-terrorist resistance forces is the beginning of a new round of organised terrorism," Iran's semi-official Nour News quoted him as saying.

Mr Hussein, on his second visit to Iran in a month, later met his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Mr Hussein is in Iran "to discuss regional developments, including ways to balance relations and avoid tension and escalation" with Iranian officials, according to an Iraqi Foreign Ministry statement.

An Iraqi militia official close to Iran said the strikes killed one fighter and wounded four.

US officials said they were limited in scope to show that President Joe Biden's administration will act firmly while trying to avoid a big regional escalation.

Mr Shamkhani said "we will confront the US plan to revive terrorism in the region", but did not elaborate.

Thursday's overnight air strikes targeted militia sites on the Syrian side of the Iraq-Syria frontier, where groups backed by Iran control an important crossing for weapons, personnel and goods.

Western officials and some Iraqi officials accuse Iranian-backed groups of involvement in deadly rocket attacks on US sites and personnel in Iraq over the last month.

Washington and Teheran are seeking maximum leverage in attempts to save Iran's nuclear deal reached with world powers in 2015 but abandoned in 2018 by former US president Donald Trump, after which regional tensions soared.

Syria on Friday said the US air strikes against Iranian-backed militias in the country were a cowardly act and urged Mr Biden not to follow "the law of the jungle".

"Syria condemns in the strongest terms the cowardly US attack on areas in Deir al-Zor near the Syrian-Iraqi border," the Syrian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"It (the Biden administration) is supposed to stick to international legitimacy, not to the law of the jungle (like) the previous administration."

Russia, an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, also criticised the US strikes and called for "unconditional respect of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria".

White House spokesman Jen Psaki said the air strikes in Syria were meant to send the message that Mr Biden will act to protect Americans.

Future US actions in the region will be deliberative and will aim to de-escalate tensions in Syria, Ms Psaki said.

US lawmakers from both political parties welcomed the strikes but a number of Democrats questioned the legal justification under which they were carried out and the continuation of military operations in the Middle East.

"I am very concerned that (the strike) by US forces in Syria puts our country on the path of continuing the Forever War instead of ending it," said Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the US strikes totally destroyed nine facilities and partially destroyed two facilities at a border control point used by a number of Iranian-backed militant groups, including Kataeb Hizbollah and Kataeb Sayyid al-Shuhada.

The Iraqi military issued a statement saying it had not exchanged information with the US over the targeting of locations in Syria, and that cooperation with the US-led coalition in Iraq was limited to fighting ISIS.

REUTERS