CAIRO: The United States and Saudi Arabia jointly struck armed groups in Iraq on Wednesday, the first US air strikes in the Middle East since President Donald Trump suspended the US bombing campaign against Iran last week. Iran, for its part, said it had fired on US bases in Jordan and at ships in the Strait of Hormuz, prompting Trump to promise retaliatory strikes against Iran, which earlier reported a US projectile hitting its northwestern city of Piranshahr near the Iraqi border.
“We’ll be hitting them hard,” Trump told Fox News, adding, however, about the possibility of future talks with Iran: “We’re going to let them keep talking.”
With renewed fighting and no quick end in sight to the war that broke out in February, oil prices rose sharply for the first time since last week.
Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces, powerful paramilitary groups incorporated into the Iraqi security forces, said at least 20 members were killed and 32 wounded in strikes targeting several bases across Iraq.
Washington and Riyadh said they had jointly struck armed groups in Iraq in retaliation for drone attacks on Saudi oil targets launched from Iraq. It was the first major US military action in the Middle East, and, if confirmed, in Iran, since last Friday, when Trump abruptly suspended an intensive bombing campaign after 13 days, having been advised by commanders that the strategy had run its course.
Iraq’s government called an emergency meeting. The Iraqi presidency denounced the strikes on the paramilitaries as “an unacceptable attack and a flagrant violation of Iraq’s sovereignty”, while also calling for a halt to attacks by armed groups against Iraq’s neighbours.
