Iran accuses US of ‘strategic mistake’ after strikes

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Iran’s foreign ministry has condemned overnight US airstrikes in Iraq and Syria as “violations of the sovereignty and territorial integrity” of the two countries.
Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani, in a statement, said the attacks symbolised “another adventurous and strategic mistake by the United States that will result only in increased tension and instability in the region”.He added that the US attacks were designed “to overshadow the Zionist regime’s crime in Gaza”. He did not say if Iran would take any action in response to the strikes.Prior to the US retaliatory strikes on Friday, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said Iran would not start a war but would “respond strongly to anyone who tries to bully it”.The US military launched airstrikes against more than 85 targets linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) and the militias it backs in Iraq and Syria, in response to last weekend’s drone attack in Jordan that killed three US troops.
The Iran-backed Islamic Resistance in Iraq took credit for the attacks, marking the first combat deaths of US troops in more than three years.
Joe Biden, US president, vowed to retaliate after the attack by “radical Iran-backed militant groups”, saying “If you harm an American, we will respond.”
US bombers, some of which had flown across the Atlantic for the mission, targeted command and control headquarters, intelligence centres and storage facilities.
Israeli airstrikes have killed 18 Palestinians in the Gaza cities of Rafah and Deir al Balah today, the Hamas-run Gaza ministry has said.
There was no confirmation from the Israeli military that it carried out the strike.
More than 10,000 pro-Palestine protesters have marched in Central London to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, according to estimates from Scotland Yard.
Hundreds of officers from the Metropolitan Police were on duty with additional dispersal powers as the march started at Portland Place and continued to Whitehall.
The US has destroyed 12 drones in the last 24 hours, the US Central Command has said.
One drone was shot down by the destroyer USS Carney over the Gulf of Aden at around 7.30am UK time on Friday, the US military announced today.
An additional seven drones were shot down over the Red Sea by the USS Laboon at 6.30pm UK time, while American forces also destroyed four more before they could be launched.
CENTCOM said that the four drones destroyed on the ground belonged to Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels, but did not identify a group linked to those that were shot down.
No injuries or damage have been reported.
 
Michelle O’Neill, Northern Ireland’s first minister, has called for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza in a historic acceptance speech.
As Northern Ireland’s first nationalist prime minister, O’Neill remarked that “we know the value of peace”
Islamic Resistance in Iraq fighters claimed to have launched a drone attack on the al-Harir airbase hosting American forces in northern Iraq on Saturday, the group said.
However, security sources soon told Reuters that no attack was detected.
According to reports, attacks were also carried out by Iran-aligned groups on the Tanf military base in Syria, and on the Ain al-Assad base in western Iraq, which host US and coalition troops.
It comes as Joe Biden warned that the US air strikes on Iraq and Syria on Friday night were just the beginning of Washington’s response to the deadly drone attack on American troops in Jordan last week.
The US carried out airstrikes on 85 targets in Iraq and Syria, targeting command and control headquarters, intelligence centres and storage facilities.
The IDF says it carried out airstrikes against several Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon today, in response to continued attacks on northern Israel.
A Hezbollah command centre, where operatives were gathered, and a nearby rocket launch site used in a recent attack, were hit in the southern Lebanese village of Yaroun, the IDF says, as well as two Hezbollah observation posts in Marwahin and Ayta ash-Shab.
The IDF also reported that rockets and missiles were fired by Hezbollah in the northern communities of Bar’am and Zar’it, causing no injuries.
Russia has condemned US airstrikes in Iraq and Syria and called for the situation to be examined by the UN Security Council.
Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said the strikes were “deliberately designed to further inflame” tensions in the Middle East.
Sir Richard Dalton, former British ambassador to Libya and Iran, has said on Sky News that strikes on Iraq and Syria were “inevitable”.
He said “the US is like a boxer with an extremely strong left but a very weak right hand”, due to the fact that the US has not proven to be strong in getting aid into Gaza or dealing with the “increasing evidence” of war crimes being committed, meaning it can’t advance the essentials for a more stable region.
The former ambassador said that he does not believe America’s actions will put an end to the Iran-backed militia attacks.
Hamas has condemned the US strikes in Iraq and Syria, saying Washington has poured “oil on the fire” in the Middle East.
 The Palestinian terrorist organisation went on to say that the region would remain at war until “the Zionist (Israeli) aggression, genocidal crimes and ethnic cleansing” in Gaza ends.
US air strikes killed at least 23 pro-Iranian fighters in Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said. In Iraq, strikes killed 16 people, including civilians, the Baghdad government said.
A Reuters report has added more detail to the Iranian ministry’s statement on the US strikes on Iran-linked targets in Iraq and Syria.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said that the US attacks were designed “to overshadow the Zionist regime’s crime in Gaza”. He did not say if Iran would take any action in response to the strikes.
He also urged the UN Security Council to prevent “illegal and unilateral US attacks in the region”.
Prior to the US retaliatory strikes on Friday, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said Iran would not start a war but would “respond strongly to anyone who tries to bully it”.
The Iraqi foreign ministry is to summon the US envoy to deliver a formal memorandum of protest in response to overnight US strikes. 
The US has said it notified Iraq of the strikes before they took place, but Iraq has claimed that this was not the case.
The US struck 85 targets in seven locations across Syria and Iraq in response to the Iran-backed drone attack in Jordan that killed three American soldiers.
Hamas has begun deploying police forces and making partial salary payments to some of its civil servants in Gaza City in recent days, resurfacing in areas from which Israel had withdrawn the bulk of its troops a month ago, according to four residents and a senior Hamas official.
Gaza city residents told AP that uniformed and plain clothed police officers were deployed near police headquarters and other government offices, including near Shifa Hospital, the territory’s largest. 
In addition, reports of partial salary payments of $200 for at least some civil servants signal that Israel has not crushed Hamas yet, despite it saying it has killed more than 9,000 fighters in the region over the last four months.
The number of civilians killed in Gaza has risen to 27,238 after 107 people were killed in the past 24 hours, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry has said.
It added 165 people have also been wounded in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of people injured to 66,452 since October 7.
Iran’s foreign ministry has condemned overnight US airstrikes in Iraq and Syria as “violations of the sovereignty and territorial integrity” of the two countries.
Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani, in a statement, said the attacks symbolised “another adventurous and strategic mistake by the United States that will result only in increased tension in instability in the region”.
The US military launched airstrikes against more than 85 targets linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) and the militias it backs, in response to last weekend’s drone attack in Jordan that killed three US troops.
Sixteen people were killed, among them civilians, and 25 injured in overnight US airstrikes on pro-Iran targets in Iraq, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s office said on Saturday.
In a statement, it condemned the strikes as a “new aggression against Iraq’s sovereignty” and denied they were coordinated by the Baghdad government beforehand with Washington.
Israel continued its strikes in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, as fears grow of a push into Rafah, the southern city packed with civilians displaced by the nearly four-month war.
Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have fled south to Rafah since the outbreak of the war, with the former city of 200,000 now housing more than half of Gaza’s two million-plus population, according to the United Nations.
According to reports, air strikes and tank fire rocked Khan Yunis overnight, with the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza saying that more than 100 people died. The IDF has said its forces have killed “dozens of terrorists” in northern and central Gaza over the past 24 hours.
The US air strikes on Iraq and Syria on Friday night are just the beginning of Washington’s response to the deadly drone attack on American troops, Joe Biden has said. 
The US carried out airstrikes on 85 targets in Iraq and Syria, targeting command and control headquarters, intelligence centres and storage facilities.
The US president had vowed to deliver a decisive response, but insisted the US did not want a wider war with Iran. However, Mr Biden warned that those who harm Americans will be punished.
“This afternoon, at my direction, US military forces struck targets at facilities in Iraq and Syria that the IRGC and affiliated militia use to attack US forces.
“Our response began today. It will continue at times and places of our choosing.
“The United States does not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world. But let all those who might seek to do us harm know this: If you harm an American, we will respond.”
Senior White House sources stressed on Friday that US action would not include any strikes on targets within Iran itself.
Senior Hamas leaders are currently split on the US-backed ceasefire and hostage-release proposal, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.
The report claims US officials state that Hamas’ top leader, Yahya Sinwar, amongst others, are looking to accept a six-week pause in fighting that will enable Hamas to “regroup and allow humanitarian aid to reach civilians in Gaza”.
Egyptian officials say that Hamas is asking for approximately 3,000 Palestinian prisoners to be freed, including some who participated in the October 7 massacre, in exchange for 36 Israeli civilian hostages, according to the report. Meanwhile, Israel is demanding the return of all hostages across a multiphase deal. The Egyptian sources told the WSJ that Hamas has said it requires more time to locate all the hostages.
Syria’s foreign ministry has condemned overnight retaliatory US airstrikes against more than 85 targets in Syria and Iraq linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the militias it backs.
“What (the US) committed has served to fuel conflict in the Middle East in a very dangerous way,” Damascus’ foreign ministry said in a statement.
Britain has called the US its “steadfast” ally and said it supports Washington’s right to respond to attacks, after the US military launched airstrikes in Iraq and Syria against Iran-linked targets.
“The UK and US are steadfast allies. We wouldn’t comment on their operations, but we support their right to respond to attacks,” a British government spokesperson said in a statement.
“We have long condemned Iran’s destabilising activity throughout the region, including its political, financial and military support to a number of militant groups.”
Josep Borrell, the European Union foreign policy chief, has called on all parties to avoid further escalation in the Middle East after US strikes on Iran-linked groups in Syria and Iraq.
“Everybody should try to avoid that the situation becomes explosive,” Mr Borrell said at a meeting on EU foreign ministers in Brussels.
The United States launched air strikes against Iranian forces and allied militias in Iraq and Syria on Friday, with Joe Biden vowing more to come in retaliation for a deadly drone attack on an American base in Jordan.
Mr Borrell did not address the US strikes directly, but repeated a warning that the Middle East “is a boiler that can explode”.
He pointed to the war in Gaza, violence along the Lebanese border, bombings in Iraq and Syria and attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.
“That’s why we call everybody to try to avoid an escalation,” Mr Borrell said.
The United Arab Emirates has allocated $5 million in support of efforts of chief United Nations Coordinator for the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), Sigrid Kaag, towards the reconstruction of the Gaza strip, state news agency WAM reported.
Major donors to UNRWA earlier suspended funding after allegations emerged that around 12 of its tens of thousands of Palestinian employees were suspected of involvement in the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel by Hamas.
Poland said that US retaliatory strikes on Iran-linked targets in Iraq and Syria were the result of Iranian proxies “playing with fire”.
“Iran’s proxies have played with fire for months and years, and it’s now burning them,” Radek Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister told reporters as he arrived for a meeting with his EU counterparts in Brussels.
Roger Wicker, a Republican Senator, has said the strikes are “welcome” but “far too late for the three brave Americans who died and the nearly 50 wounded”. 
He added: “Iran and its proxies have tried to kill American soldiers and sink our warships 165 times while the Biden administration congratulates itself for doing the bare minimum. 
“Instead of giving the Ayatollah the bloody nose that he deserves, we continue to give him a slap on the wrist.”
The Syrian defence ministry said that US forces’ “blatant air aggression” led to a number of civilians and soldiers being killed and others being wounded and some significant damage to public and private property.
“Occupying parts of Syrian lands by American forces cannot continue … the Syrian army affirms continuing its war against terrorism until it is eliminated and is determined to liberate the entire Syrian territories from terrorism and occupation,” the ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
The Iraqi military said the strikes were in the Iraqi border area and warned they could ignite instability in the region.
Finally.Iran needs to know the price for American lives. https://t.co/RNH8iYyZ6c
Iraq has angrily denounced US air strikes in its territory on Friday night.
American forces hit at least two Iranian militia targets in Iraq, including the headquarters of the Axis of Resistance in Al-Qaim and the base of the Popular Mobilisation Forces in Akashat.
But Gen Yehia Rasool, a spokesman for Iraq’s prime minister, called the strikes a “violation” of his country’s sovereignty and said they would bring “disastrous consequences for the security and stability of Iraq and the region”.
Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani has recently called for the departure of American troops from Iraq after a previous US strike in Baghdad.
John Kirby, the US National Security Council spokesman, said the Biden administration “did inform the Iraqi government prior to the strikes,” but did not elaborate on Baghdad’s response.
Israel is accused of clearing a 1km “buffer zone” inside the Gaza Strip as part of a new security border that could shrink the overall size of the Palestinian territory.
Satellite images analysed by The Telegraph show more than 1,000 buildings destroyed around the land perimeter of Gaza since the Oct 7 Hamas terror attacks.
Read more: Homes razed, orchards and schools destroyed – we reveal the truth behind Gaza’s new border
Mike Johnson, the Republican Speaker of the House, has criticised the White House for delaying its retaliation against Iranian militia groups after the killing of US troops in Jordan last week.
Mr Johnson said: “The public handwringing and excessive signaling undercuts our ability to put a decisive end to the barrage of attacks endured over the past few months.”
My statement regarding the U.S. strikes in Syria and Iraq. pic.twitter.com/ILO93cf0kS
 
Here are five of the seven locations targeted by US forces on Friday night. The other two sites have not yet been confirmed.
Deir al-Zour – Media in Lebanon are reporting videos of large explosions in the eastern city 
Mayadin – There were reports of explosions in the ancient town, which lies on the Euphrates
Bukamal – There were also reports of strikes in Bukamal, on the border with Iraq
Al-Qaim – US forces struck weapons depots and targeted the headquarters of the Axis of Resistance
Akashat – The base of the Popular Mobilisation Forces was reported to have been struck by a missile
Deadly strikes were reported on Saturday morning in the overcrowded Gaza border town of Rafah.
Witnesses in the city heard powerful explosions shortly after midnight on Saturday, with the Hamas-run health ministry reporting 14 people killed in two strikes there.
Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have fled south to Rafah since the outbreak of the war, with the former city of 200,000 now housing more than half of Gaza’s two million-plus population, according to the United Nations.
The UN humanitarian agency Ocha said it was deeply concerned about the escalation of hostilities in nearby Khan Yunis, which have pushed more and more people south in recent days.
“Most are living in makeshift structures, tents or out in the open,” Ocha spokesman Jens Laerke said.
“Rafah is a pressure cooker of despair, and we fear for what comes next.”
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force and affiliated militia groups continue to represent a direct threat to the stability of Iraq, the region, and the safety of Americans. We will continue to take action, do whatever is necessary to protect our people, and… pic.twitter.com/Y53nvRfjjx
Democrats and Republicans are divided over Joe Biden’s strikes against Iranian targets in the Middle East on Friday night.
Jack Reed, the Democratic senator and chairman of the Senate Armed Service Committee, welcomed the attack and said Iran had to be held accountable for the deaths of US troops in Jordan.
“Iran’s proxy forces in Syria and Iraq have been dealt a significant blow, and Iranian-linked militias around the Middle East should understand that they, too, will be held accountable,” Mr Reed said.
“I salute the brave US military members who carried out today’s strikes, and I support President Biden’s robust action.
“These strikes, in concert with wise diplomacy, send a clear signal that the United States will continue to take appropriate action to protect our personnel and our interests.”
Across the House floor, Republicans have been highly critical of the White House’s soft stance on Tehran and Senator Roger Wicker, also a member of the Armed Services Committee, said Friday’s strikes will do little to frighten the Iranian regime.
“These military strikes are welcome, but come far too late for the three brave Americans who died and the nearly 50 wounded,” Mr Wicker said. 
“Iran and its proxies have tried to kill American soldiers and sink our warships 165 times while the Biden administration congratulates itself for doing the bare minimum. 
“Instead of giving the Ayatollah the bloody nose that he deserves, we continue to give him a slap on the wrist.”
Joe Biden’s reprisal strikes on Iranian military targets in Iraq and Syria on Friday night posed one of the riskiest tests of his presidency to date.
The president’s actions were carefully aimed at treading a delicate balance: refuting charges of weak leadership while avoiding dragging the US into a wider regional conflict.
Mr Biden faced pressure at home and abroad to respond to the killing of three US troops in Jordan last weekend in a manner that would unequivocally signal he will not let American deaths go unpunished.
But in the tinderbox of the Middle East conflicts, even the most carefully planned military action can have unforeseen consequences.
Read more: Biden is entering the most dangerous days of his presidency
It is unclear whether militia members were killed in the US attacks on Friday night.
Lt Gen Douglas Sims, the director of the Joint Staff, said: “We know that there are militants that use these locations, IRGC as well as Iranian-aligned militia group personnel.”
He added: “We made these strikes tonight with an idea that there there would likely be casualties associated with people inside those facilities.”
Syrian state media reported that there were casualties but did not give a number. 
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that 18 militants were killed in the Syria strikes.