White House on Iran Proxies Continuing to Strike Troops: ‘Not Uncommon’ for Them to Retaliate when We Strike

On Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Situation Room,” White House National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby reacted to U.S. troops facing further attacks from Iranian proxy groups in the wake of the U.S. strikes on Wednesday by stating that it’s “not uncommon after we take a retaliatory strike for there to be some sort of secondary set of strikes by these proxy groups. We haven’t seen them be very effective. That doesn’t mean we’re taking it lightly or we’re undermining it at all. Obviously, we’ll continue to do what we have to do to protect our troops in Iraq and Syria.”

Host Wolf Blitzer asked, “As you know, the U.S. struck Iranian weapons in Syria last night in retaliation for attacks on American forces. But since then, U.S. troops have already been targeted in four more attacks. So, are these U.S. retaliatory strikes actually working?”

Kirby answered, “It is not uncommon after we take a retaliatory strike for there to be some sort of secondary set of strikes by these proxy groups. We haven’t seen them be very effective. That doesn’t mean we’re taking it lightly or we’re undermining it at all. Obviously, we’ll continue to do what we have to do to protect our troops in Iraq and Syria. You heard the president talk about that today. Look, these proxy groups and the IRGC, the Revolutionary Guard Corps that supports them, resources them, trains them, funds them, gives them these capabilities, they have a choice to make. We’ve shown that we will do what we have to do to protect our troops in Iraq and Syria. We’ll continue to do that. If they want yet more responses from the American…military, then they’ll have to deal with the consequences for that, if they’re going to keep striking.”

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