{"id":51760,"date":"2020-03-12T18:37:43","date_gmt":"2020-03-12T23:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=51760"},"modified":"2020-03-12T18:37:45","modified_gmt":"2020-03-12T23:37:45","slug":"large-scale-us-airstrikes-underway-against-iran-backed-militias-in-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=51760","title":{"rendered":"Large Scale US Airstrikes Underway Against Iran-Backed Militias In Iraq"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/large-scale-us-airstrikes-underway-against-iran-backed-groups-iraq\">Large Scale US Airstrikes Underway Against Iran-Backed Militias In Iraq<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>After earlier in the day President Trump&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/trump-authorizes-potential-military-response-after-deadly-iran-backed-attack-killed-2\">authorized<\/a>&nbsp;the Pentagon to&nbsp;&#8220;do what we need to do&#8221; in terms of a military response against Iran-backed militias believed responsible for&nbsp;Wednesday&#8217;s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/two-us-and-one-british-soldiers-killed-rocket-attack-tajj-military-base-iraq\">rocket attacks<\/a>&nbsp;on Camp Taji, which killed one British and two American soldiers, and wounded at least a dozen more, there are widespread reports the US has<strong>&nbsp;initiated massive airstrikes over southern Iraq late Thursday night<\/strong>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A BBC correspondent in the region is&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nafisehkBBC\/status\/1238226191720513537\">describing<\/a>&nbsp;&#8220;multiple strikes across Iran-backed groups&#8217; facilities&#8221; which include&nbsp;&#8220;logistics and drone warehouses.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Early reports suggest the attack includes &#8220;large amounts of munitions&#8221; on multiple Iraqi Shia militia targets. Moments after initial reports on social media US defense offcials\u00a0confirmed that\u00a0<strong>&#8220;airstrikes are underway against Iran-backed militia group that hit Iraq base,&#8221;<\/strong>according to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/officials-us-airstrikes-underway-against-iran-backed-militia-group-that-hit-iraq-base\/2020\/03\/12\/c677fae8-64b0-11ea-8a8e-5c5336b32760_story.html\">Associated Press<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nafisehkBBC\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pbs.twimg.com\/profile_images\/1171925673256071168\/hk9tp0Hj_normal.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nafisehkBBC\"><strong><\/strong><strong>\u2714<\/strong><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nafisehkBBC\/status\/1238232445503356930\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bombing <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Iran?src=hash\">#Iran<\/a>-backed paramilitary group positions around <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Karbala?src=hash\">#Karbala<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Salahaddin?src=hash\">#Salahaddin<\/a> is significant. This is the largest amount of force I&#8217;ve seen  against Hashd (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/PMF?src=hash\">#PMF<\/a>) so far. These areas are considered &#8220;No fly zones&#8221; for <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Coalition?src=hash\">#Coalition<\/a>. Jets may have come from <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/UAE?src=hash\">#UAE<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Kuwait?src=hash\">#Kuwait<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>As if the Mideast region and the world for that matter needs another crisis to worry about, this could be the start of the kind of tit-for-tat between the US and Iran which paved the way for&nbsp;the US killing by drone of IRGC Quds Force chief&nbsp;Qassem Soleimani on January 3rd. Since then, the two have been on a war footing.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Defense Secretary Mark Esper hours ago&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsbtv.com\/news\/politics\/us-warns-iraq-base\/MKWVAC2QMMLW2YGIRUHSBFDQXM\/\">warned t<\/a>he US would hold the groups behind Wednesday&#8217;s attack on Taji base accountable.&nbsp;<strong>\u201cYou don&#8217;t get to shoot at our bases and kill and wound Americans and get away with it,\u201d&nbsp;<\/strong>he said earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to Fox News&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JenGriffinFNC\/status\/1238231803724468224\">security correspondent Jennifer Griffin<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p><strong>The US response will be \u201cproportional\u201d targeting multiple locations used by Iranian backed Shia militias across Iraq and along Syrian border.<\/strong><\/p><p>Will be limited to airstrikes: source. Will degrade Shia militia\/ Kata\u2019eb Hezbollah ability to strike: US military source.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Large Scale US Airstrikes Underway Against Iran-Backed Militias In Iraq After earlier in the day President Trump&nbsp;authorized&nbsp;the Pentagon to&nbsp;&#8220;do what we need to do&#8221; in terms of a military response against Iran-backed militias believed responsible for&nbsp;Wednesday&#8217;s&nbsp;rocket attacks&nbsp;on Camp Taji, which killed one British and two American soldiers, and wounded at least a dozen more, there [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3230,442,827],"class_list":["post-51760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-fox-news","tag-iraq","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51760"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51761,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51760\/revisions\/51761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}