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Pompeo: U.S. airstrikes against Iranian-backed militia were 'defensive action'

The Trump administration blames the militia for a rocket barrage that killed an American defense contractor.

By QUINT FORGEY

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday elaborated upon a series of U.S. military strikes that targeted an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia over the weekend — characterizing the assault as a “defensive action” intended to protect American interests in the Middle East and halt Tehran’s aggression in the region.

“Well, it begins by an understanding that this was a defensive action designed to protect American forces and American citizens in Iraq, and it was aimed also at deterring Iran,” Pompeo told the hosts of “Fox & Friends.”

The Pentagon announced Sunday it had conducted “precision defensive strikes” in Iraq and Syria against five sites of Kataeb Hezbollah, or Hezbollah Brigades. The Trump administration blames the militia for perpetrating a rocket barrage Friday that killed a U.S. defense contractor at a military compound near Kirkuk, in northern Iraq.

“This was an Iranian-backed, rogue militia acting to deny the Iraqi people their basic sovereignty,” Pompeo said Monday, charging that Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei are “working to expand their terror campaign all around the world.”

“They took a strike at an American facility. President Trump’s been pretty darn patient, and he's made clear at the same time that when Americans’ lives were at risk, we would respond, and that’s what the Department of Defense did yesterday,” Pompeo said.