The strikes on Tuesday are the first in Iraq since the beginning of the month, when the US targeted a member of an Iranian proxy group operating in the country who one US official said had “US blood on his hands.” They also come after multiple strikes against the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen over the last week and a half, as the US looks to rein in the aggressive actions of Iranian-backed groups in the Middle East amid heightened tensions in the region.

US forces in Iraq and Syria have come under attack at least 151 times since attacks began on October 17, according to a US official — 10 days after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7. And while officials have not directly connected the two situations, the ongoing attacks on US forces have fed into heightened tensions and concerns about broader conflict breaking out in the region, particularly when coupled with the regular attacks on commercial shipping by the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen.

“We’ve continued to see attacks on our forces since October 17th in Iraq and Syria. The attack that we saw over the weekend was just a larger scale attack,” Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said Monday. “But again, we don’t seek conflict, we don’t want to see this widen out to a regional war, we don’t want … to continue to see our forces being put at risk.”

The US’ actions against the Iran-backed militias in Iraq have appeared to strain tensions between the US and the Iraqi government. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani told Reuters this month that that there should be a “quick” time frame for the US-led coalition’s exit from the country. The US has maintained that it is in Iraq at the invitation of its government, as part of the ongoing mission to defeat ISIS.

“There is a need to reorganize this relationship so that it is not a target or justification for any party, internal or foreign, to tamper with stability in Iraq and the region,” Sudani said. Ryder said at the Pentagon on Tuesday that he was not aware “of any official notifications” to the Pentagon regarding a withdrawal of US forces.

The US has carried out a number of strikes in Iraq and Syria in response to the attacks on coalition forces, placing blame squarely on Iran for supporting the militia groups carrying out the attacks.

In October, following US airstrikes on facilities linked to Iranian-backed militias, a senior defense official said Tehran was “the center of gravity” for the attacks, and that “Iranian fingerprints are all over this.”

“Tehran and Iranian senior leaders are funding, arming, equipping, training and directing a whole plethora of militia groups across the region, and they have escalated attacks against US forces since October 17, which is why we took self-defense action,” the official said.

While the attacks in Iraq and Syria have been ongoing, the US has also been managing regular attacks by the Houthis in Yemen on commercial shipping. The strikes on Tuesday followed strikes on the Houthis on Monday, carried out by the US and UK, which a senior official said were successful in striking weapons storage sites, drone systems, and missiles.

It was the eighth round of strikes on the Houthis by the US military in roughly 10 days.

This story has been updated with additional details.