UNITED NATIONS,: The UN Security Council is set to hold an “urgent” meeting Monday afternoon on the US strikes in Iraq and Syria, which it reportedly launched in retaliation for the death of three American soldiers, diplomats said.
They said Russia requested the meeting to discuss the attacks launched by Washington against Iran-backed groups it has accused of attacking US troops in the region.
Russia’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, said on social media that his country has “called for an urgent UN Security Council meeting to discuss threats to international peace and security from the US strikes against Iraq and Syria.”
Earlier on Saturday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said the airstrikes had been deliberately designed to inflame tensions in the region.
The attacks once again demonstrated the aggressive nature of Washington’s foreign policy, she said, noting that the US “is purposefully trying to drive the largest countries in the region into conflict.”
“Washington, believing in its impunity, continues to sow destruction and chaos in the Middle East. The largest US air raid in the region since 2003, led by Joe Biden’s ‘act of retaliation’ for the unidentified drone attack on the American base in Jordan has no justification.”
“We strongly condemn the new blatant act of American-British aggression against sovereign states. We are seeking urgent consideration of the current situation through the UN Security Council,” she said.
The US started air strikes on Friday against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps-Quds Force and Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria after a suicide drone attack killed three American troops in Jordan late last month.
In all, more than 85 targets were hit with more than 125 precision munitions, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement.
The strikes have also evoked criticism from the targeted countries.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s office said sixteen people had been killed, among them civilians, and 25 others injured in the aerial assaults.
He denounced the attacks as a “new aggression against Iraq’s sovereignty,” denying that they had been coordinated with the Baghdad government beforehand.
Syria said those regions that were targeted by the US strikes “are the same regions where the Syrian army fights remnants of the Daesh terrorist group, and this confirms that the US is in cahoots and allied with this group.”
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