SAUDI ARABIA ĐÃ THAM CHIẾN - CÙNG MỸ OANH TẠC CÁC ĐƠN VỊ SHIA DO IRAN VÕ TRANG VÀ TÀI TRỢ NẰM TRONG LÃNH THỔ IRAQ./-Mt68

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Saudi Arabia joins US in strikes on Iran-backed militias in Iraq.

17 hours ago

David Gritten

AFP

Iraqi security and emergency personnel work at the scene of a strike in Muqdadiyah, Diyala province on Wednesday

Saudi Arabia and the US have carried out strikes against Iran-backed militias in Iraq, in a potential escalation of the Middle East conflict.

US Central Command (Centcom) said the strikes were against "Iran-aligned terrorists that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) directed to attack US forces and Saudi energy infrastructure".

Iraq's paramilitary Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), which is dominated by Iran-backed Shia militias, said at least 20 of its members had been killed in US-Saudi strikes on its bases.

It came hours after Centcom said Iran had launched missiles at US forces in the Middle East in an "attempted surprise attack", ending a lull in hostilities.

The US said the Iranian attack occurred at 17:45 EDT (21:45 GMT) on Tuesday, with all missiles "successfully intercepted".

The IRGC said it had targeted a US air base and a command centre in Jordan "in response to the acts of aggression of the American child-killing army".

It also said that naval forces had struck three oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz after they "ignored warnings" and sailed along what it described as an "unsafe and illegal route" through the vital Gulf waterway.

When asked by a Fox News correspondent on Wednesday about the Iranian attack on Jordan, US President Donald Trump said in an expletive-laden response that US forces would be "hitting them hard", adding: "They're going to get a beating."

Centcom said the joint US-Saudi strikes hit "multiple terrorist logistics and weapons sites across eastern Iraq in a strong response to over 30 IRGC-directed aerial drone attacks in the last 72 hours".

It called the drone attacks "unwarranted" and added that they had failed.

"The IRGC and its terrorist proxies must cease these attacks to avoid further US military response," the Centcom statement said.

A spokesman for the Saudi defence ministry, Maj-Gen Turki al-Maliki, also accused "Iran-backed terrorist militias" of launching drones from Iraqi territory at oil facilities in the Eastern and Riyadh regions on Monday and Tuesday.

He said Saudi Arabia, under its "right to self-defence", had responded by conducting strikes "against specific targets belonging to those militias".

"The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia reiterates that it does not seek escalation but will respond decisively to any aggression directed against it," he added.

The PMF said in a statement on Wednesday morning that at least 20 of its fighters had been killed and 32 others wounded in US-Saudi strikes on a number of its headquarters in the provinces of Baghdad, Wasit, Nineveh, Basra, Kirkuk, Karbala and Diyala.

An official told AFP news agency that the strikes in Nineveh, in the north, and in Diyala, in the centre, were the deadliest.