UNSC to hold emergency meeting on US strikes on Iraq, Syria

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is to hold an emergency meeting on the recent United States airstrikes on Iraq and Syria.

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 February 5, Mehr news agency reports.

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.

On early Saturday, US occupation forces targeted positions in Syria’s eastern province of Deir ez-Zur and the city of al-Bukamal near the Iraqi border. The US also attacked the cities of al-Qa’im and Akashat near the Syrian border in Iraq’s western province of Anbar. In addition to leaving many 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 the American forces in Jordan. 

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," rejecting that they had been coordinated with the Baghdad government beforehand.

Damascus has also strongly condemned the aggression, saying the strikes were deliberately aimed at weakening the country's fight against Takfiri terrorist groups.