US and Saudi forces strike Iran-backed militants in Iraq
US and Saudi warplanes carried out strikes on Wednesday against Iran-backed militants in Iraq who launched more than two dozen drone attacks in recent days, the US military said.
The strikes targeted “Iran-aligned terrorists that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) directed to attack US forces and Saudi energy infrastructure”, US Central Command (Centcom) said in a statement.
It further warned that “the IRGC and its terrorist proxies must cease these attacks to avoid further US military response”.
Saudi Arabia confirmed its involvement in the strikes, its defence ministry saying it hit “targets belonging to those militias present on Iraqi territory that are linked to attacks on the kingdom’s oil facilities”.
The strikes came after the ministry said its forces had intercepted drones targeting oil facilities in the east, blaming Iran-backed groups in Iraq.
Riyadh called the previous day for the Iraqi government to prevent attacks from its territory, after which Baghdad said it had ordered an investigation.
Centcom had said earlier on Wednesday that Iran launched multiple ballistic missiles in an “attempted surprise attack on US forces based in the Middle East” but all were intercepted.
Both sides had held fire over the weekend, following nearly two weeks of nightly strikes by the United States on Iran, and repeated missile and drone salvos by Tehran targeting Washington’s allies around the Gulf.
-AFP
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