US and Saudi Arabia Launch Joint Strikes on Iran-Backed Groups in Iraq

By Parisa Hafezi, Ahmed Tolba and Ahmed Elimam

DUBAI/CAIRO, July 29 (Reuters) – The United States and Saudi Arabia jointly struck Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq on Wednesday, the first U.S. airstrikes in the Middle East since President Donald Trump suspended the U.S. bombing campaign against Iran last week.

Iran, for its part, rejected an Omani proposal to jointly manage the Strait of Hormuz and said it had fired on ships in the strait and at U.S. bases in Jordan.

The renewed combat and diplomatic setbacks pushed oil prices up for the first time since last week, signaling no quick end to the war the United States and Israel started in February.

Iraqi men shouted Shi'ite sectarian slogans and "Death to America!" as they carried the bodies of slain fighters in body bags out of a hospital in Mosul in northern Iraq, footage from Iraq's Al-Ahad television showed.

Washington and Riyadh said they had jointly struck the Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq in retaliation for drone attacks on Saudi oil targets launched from Iraq.

Iraq's Popular Mobilisation Forces, powerful Iran-backed paramilitary groups incorporated into the formal Iraqi security forces, said at least 20 members were killed and 32 wounded in U.S.-Saudi strikes targeting several bases across Iraq.

It was the first major U.S. military action in the Middle East since last Friday, when Trump abruptly suspended an intensive bombing campaign after 13 days, having been advised by commanders that the strategy had run its course.

It was also the first time during the war that Saudi Arabia had publicly declared its participation in joint strikes alongside the United States. The joint strikes potentially widen the conflict by drawing Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia into combat against Shi'ite proxies of Iran on a new front.

Iraq's Shi'ite-led government, one of the few in the world to maintain close military and diplomatic ties with both Tehran and Washington, called an emergency meeting.

Washington has long called on the Baghdad government to crack down on Iran-backed paramilitaries, but efforts to do so in the past have provoked domestic unrest.

The deep ties between Iran and Iraq, the two biggest Shi'ite-majority countries, have been on display this week as hundreds of thousands of Iranian religious pilgrims visit shrines in Iraq for an annual holiday, crossing the border over land. Some carried portraits of Iran's slain supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, revered as a high-ranking cleric in both countries.

Saudi Arabia has also been drawn into the conflict on another front, with the Iran-aligned Houthi movement in Yemen announcing a blockade of Saudi oil exports in the Red Sea last week and firing on ships and oil facilities.

Hours before launching the joint attacks with Saudi Arabia on Iraq, the U.S. military said its air defenses had averted a surprise Iranian attack on U.S. troops in the region.

Jordan's military said its air defenses had intercepted and shot down five Iranian missiles. Three of the four U.S. service members killed this month were killed in Jordan, where U.S. bases have become primary Iranian targets.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they had fired several ballistic missiles at U.S. military installations in Jordan, and had struck three tankers that were attempting to transit through the Strait of Hormuz along an unauthorized route.

Fighting had first resumed this month after a U.S.-Iran deal reached in June on a framework to end the war collapsed over the fate of the strait, the world's most important energy shipping route, which Iran says it controls and where it aims to collect fees.

Oman proposed a plan for joint regional control of the strait this week, with the backing of Gulf states, that would allow the payment of voluntary service charges. But a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Wednesday that Iran had rejected the Omani proposal as "unreasonable."

The official said a 50-50 joint control arrangement with Oman would not serve Iran's interests, though Tehran considers Oman a valuable neighbor. Iran wants sole control over the inbound route and partial control over the outbound route.

The United States has been telling ships to use a route near the Omani shore rather than sailing close to Iran. The Revolutionary Guards Navy said in a statement it continued to maintain full control over the strait and would respond to "unlawful U.S. military interference."

The renewed fighting sent oil prices rising 4.6%, with Brent crude futures trading at almost $88 a barrel at 1030 GMT. The price, which had briefly spiked above $100 last week for the first time since May, had tumbled into the mid-80s this week after it emerged over the weekend that Trump had called off the bombing.