The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is to hold an emergency meeting on the United States’ airstrikes in Iraq and Syria that caused fatalities and considerable material damage across the Arab countries.
On early Saturday, US occupation forces targeted positions in Syria’s eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr and the city of al-Bukamal near the Iraqi border. They also attacked the cities of al-Qa’im and Akashat near the Syrian border in Iraq’s western province of al-Anbar. In addition to leaving about 40 people dead, the strikes also caused damage to private and public property.
The US claims that the strikes were directed against those who were responsible for a recent deadly attack on American forces in Jordan. According to the US Central Command, the American military deployed “more than 125 precision munitions” during the attacks.
The emergency meeting of the Security Council to discuss the US aggression was requested by permanent member Russia and is scheduled to take place at 4:00 pm local time (2100 GMT) on Monday.
Russia’s first 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.”
Russia has just called for an urgent UN Security Council meeting to discuss threats to international peace and security from the US strikes against Iraq and Syria. The meeting is expected to be held at 4 pm EST on February 5
— Dmitry Polyanskiy 🇺🇳 (@Dpol_un) February 3, 2024
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 Washington “is purposefully trying to drive the largest countries in the region into conflict.”
The strikes have also drawn fiery 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 has also strongly condemned the aggression, saying they were deliberately aimed at weakening Damascus’ fight against Takfiri terrorist groups.
The Syrian army said those regions that were targeted by the US strikes “are the same where the Syrian army fights remnants of the Daesh terrorist organization, and this confirms that the US is in cahoots and allied with this [terrorist] group.”
Iran, for its part, strongly condemned US airstrikes on Iraq and Syria, calling them a “strategic mistake” and a violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the two countries, international law and the UN Charter.
“Last night’s attacks on Syria and Iraq are an adventurous act and another strategic mistake by the American government, which will have no result other than the escalation of tension and instability in the region,” Foreign Ministry spokesman, Nasser Kan’ani, said on Saturday.
Kan’ani also reiterated Iran’s warning about the possibility of expansion of scope and geography of conflict in the region, calling the “continuation of such adventures a threat to regional and international peace and security.”
