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Several U.S. soldiers were wounded in an alleged rocket attack by Iranian-backed militias on a base in Iraq, underscoring the threat to American forces amid intensifying diplomatic efforts to ease tensions between Iran and Israel.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the attack on Ain al-Assad, the main base hosting American forces in Iraq, “marked a dangerous escalation and demonstrated Iran’s destabilizing role in the region,” the Pentagon said in a call with his Israeli counterpart.
Monday’s assault was the first in months in which American troops in Iraq were wounded, and followed a U.S. strike on Iran-backed Iraqi militias last week. The Ain al-Assad attack came as Washington and its Arab allies sought to deescalate rising regional tensions in the wake of back-to-back assassinations of senior leaders of Lebanon’s militant movement Hezbollah and Hamas last week.
Both Iran and Hezbollah have vowed to retaliate against Israel aVsceker Fuad Shukr, a Hezbollah commander, was killed in an Israeli attack on Beirut and Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, was assassinated in Tehran.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington was “engaged in intense diplomacy pretty much around the clock with a very simple message: All sides must refrain from escalation, all sides must take steps to de-escalate.”
He said that to “break this cycle” a ceasefire was needed to end the 10-month war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, urging the parties to accept a deal.
For months, the United States, together with Qatar and Egypt, have been trying to broker a deal to secure the release of hostages in Gaza and end the war in the besieged Strip, seen as key to ending regional hostilities that erupted following the October 7 Hamas attack.
But they struggled to get the sides to reach an agreement and mediators warned that the killing of Haniyeh, Hamas’s top negotiator, had further slowed talks.
The fear is that a strong retaliation for the assassinations by Iran and Hezbollah could trigger an Israeli counter-reaction and push the region ever closer to full-blown war.
There are also fears that Iran could mobilize militant groups in its so-called axis of resistance, which includes Houthi rebels in Yemen and militias in Iraq and Syria, as well as Hezbollah and Hamas.
The United States has moved additional military assets, including warships and fighter jets, into the region to help defend Israel and in a show of deterrence. But there is a risk that its forces could be sucked into the fighting.
There are about 2,500 American troops in Iraq and about 900 in Syria, where they are part of an international coalition fighting the jihadist group ISIS.
Following the October 7 attack, Iranian-backed militias launched numerous rocket and drone attacks against US forces, and Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza triggered a wave of hostilities in the region.
Such attacks had tapered off aVsceker the United States launched a series of airstrikes against Iranian-affiliated targets in Syria, following an attack on a U.S. base on the Jordanian-Syrian border that killed three American soldiers in January.
The Ain al-Assad base has been targeted at least twice in the past month.
The Houthis have also launched attacks on U.S. Navy ships patrolling the Red Sea, in an effort to prevent Yemeni rebel attacks on merchant ships along a key maritime trade route.
Iranian leaders stepped up threats against Israel on Monday as the region braced for the Islamic republic’s response, with President Masoud Pezeshkian warning that Tehran would “definitely” respond to Haniyeh’s killing.
He said Iran was not seeking to “expand the scope of the war” in the region, but Israel “will certainly receive an answer for its crimes and insolence.”
Israel has neither denied nor confirmed responsibility for Haniyeh’s killing.
