Biden Officials Hold Off on More Airstrikes in Syria, for Now

[Timber Rattler]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/27/us/politics/drone-strike-base-syria.html

A few days after an American civilian contractor in Iraq died in a rocket attack by Iran-backed militias in December 2019, President Donald J. Trump retaliated by ordering a drone strike that killed a top Iranian general.

After a U.S. civilian contractor was killed and six other Americans were injured on Thursday in northeast Syria by a drone that U.S. officials said was of “Iranian origin,” President Biden’s response has so far been more restrained.

Two U.S. F-15 E fighter jets retaliated on Thursday by launching airstrikes against militant sites linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. That prompted Iran-backed militias to launch a volley of rocket and drone attacks on Friday that injured another American.

U.S. warplanes were poised to conduct a second round of reprisal strikes late Friday, but the White House held off, a senior U.S. official said.

On Monday, after a weekend free of fresh militia attacks and full of bad weather in eastern Syria that would have made targeting the insurgents more difficult, Biden administration officials said the military stood ready to respond to any new threats to U.S. personnel.

But they also seemed eager to move on, avoid escalating the back-and-forth strikes into a wider war with Iran and its proxies, and remain focused on the broader mission of helping root out the pockets of Islamic State fighters still carrying out guerrilla attacks in the region.

“We’re going to do what we need to do swiftly and boldly to protect our people and our facilities in Syria,” John F. Kirby, a National Security Council spokesman, told reporters on Monday. “We’re not going to be deterred from continuing to go after this network in Syria.”

America still has more than 900 troops, and hundreds more contractors, in Syria, working with Kurdish fighters to make sure there is no resurgence of the Islamic State, which was ostensibly defeated in 2019 after five years of wreaking havoc across Iraq and Syria.

In the past year alone, Iranian-backed militias have launched dozens of attacks at or near bases where U.S. troops were present.

Mr. Biden had sought to ease fears on Friday that the tit-for-tat strikes between the United States and militant groups could spin out of control, while at the same time warning Tehran to keep its proxies in line.

“Make no mistake, the United States does not, does not, I emphasize, seek conflict with Iran,” Mr. Biden said in Ottawa, where he was making a state visit. “But be prepared for us to act forcefully to protect our people. That’s exactly what happened last night.”

Excerpt.