US air strikes target Iran-backed militia

The United States has carried out air strikes authorised by President Joe Biden against facilities belonging to Iranian-backed militia in eastern Syria, in response to rocket attacks against US targets in Iraq, the Pentagon says.

The strikes appeared limited in scope, potentially lowering the risk of escalation. It was not immediately clear what damage was caused.

Syria did not immediately comment, but state-owned Ekhbariya TV said the strikes were conducted at dawn against several targets near the Syrian-Iraqi border.

An Iraqi militia official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said at least one fighter had been killed and four others were wounded.

A medical source at a hospital in the area and several local sources told Reuters 17 people had been killed. That toll could not be independently confirmed.

Biden's decision to strike only in Syria and not in Iraq, at least for now, gives Iraq's government some breathing room as it investigates a February 15 attack that wounded Americans.

"At President (Joe) Biden's direction, US military forces earlier this evening conducted air strikes against infrastructure utilised by Iranian-backed militant groups in eastern Syria," Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.

"President Biden will act to protect American and Coalition personnel. At the same time, we have acted in a deliberate manner that aims to de-escalate the overall situation in both eastern Syria and Iraq."

He said the strikes destroyed multiple facilities at a border control point used by Iranian-backed militant groups, including Kata'ib Hezbollah and Kata'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada.

After the strikes, the Iranian and Syrian foreign ministers spoke and underlined "the need of the West to adhere to UN Security Council resolutions regarding Syria," Iranian government website Dolat.ir said.

A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the decision to carry out the strikes was meant as a signal that Washington wanted to punish the militias but did not want the situation to spiral into a bigger conflict.

The rocket attacks on US positions in Iraq were carried out as Washington and Tehran seek a way to return to the 2015 nuclear deal abandoned by former US President Donald Trump.

It was not clear how, or whether, the strike might affect US efforts to coax Iran back into a negotiation about both sides resuming compliance with the agreement.

In the February 15 attack, rockets hit the US military base housed at Erbil International Airport in the Kurdish-run region, killing one non-American contractor and wounding a number of American contractors and a US service member.

Another salvo struck a base hosting US forces north of Baghdad days later, hurting at least one contractor.

The Kata'ib Hezbollah group, one of the main Iran-aligned Iraqi militia groups, denied any role in the rocket attacks.

During Trump's presidency, tensions culminated in the US killing of Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani and a retaliatory Iranian ballistic missile attack against US forces in Iraq last year.