Pentagon Announces Additional Strikes In ‘Direct Response’ To Attacks ‘By Iran’

The Department of Defense announced Tuesday night that U.S. forces carried out two additional air strikes against targets in “direct response” to attacks “by Iran.”

United States Central Command reported the strikes in a Tuesday night post on X, formerly known as Twitter, hours after a Lockheed AC-130 airborne gunship carried out a strike after members of an Iranian-backed militia group launched a ballistic missile at a U.S. military base. The precision strikes targeted two facilities used by Iranian-backed militias, according to Fox News.

“On the morning of November 22 in Iraq, U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) forces conducted discrete, precision strikes against two facilities in Iraq,” CENTCOM said. “The strikes were in direct response to the attacks against U.S. and Coalition forces by Iran and Iran-backed groups, including the one in Iraq on November 21, which involved use of close-range ballistic missiles.”

American forces and Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria have engaged in back-and-forth strikes in November. At least 66 drone and rocket attacks have been carried out on U.S. bases in the Middle East, according to ABC News.

The State Department designated Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada (KSS), a group it says has coordinated attacks on U.S. bases. as a foreign terrorist organization Friday.

The Biden administration has come under fire for easing sanctions on Iran, allowing the country to export more oil and allowing Iraq to purchase electricity. The Biden administration also arranged for South Korea to release $6 billion in proceeds from Iranian oil exports for humanitarian purposes as part of a deal to secure the release of five detained Americans, but Iran’s access to the $6 billion was blocked again after the deadly Hamas attack.

“Last week, Biden handed over $10 billion more as the Ayatollah met with Hamas leaders,” Republican Rep. Brian Mast of Florida posted on X Tuesday. “Why is a single dollar allowed to flow to the largest state sponsor of terror?”