Washington, Feb 26 (IANS) The Pentagon confirmed that the US military had conducted airstrikes against infrastructure utilized by Iranian-backed militant groups in eastern Syria.

"At President (Joe) Biden's direction, US military forces earlier this evening conducted airstrikes against infrastructure utilized by Iranian-backed militant groups in eastern Syria," the Pentagon said in a statement on Thursday, Xinhua news agency reported.

"These strikes were authorized in response to recent attacks against American and Coalition personnel in Iraq, and to ongoing threats to those personnel," it said, adding the strikes destroyed multiple facilities located at a border control point used by a number of Iranian-backed militant groups.

Thursday's airstrikes also came at a time when the Biden administration, which reportedly plans to bring the United States back to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that the Donald Trump administration pulled out of, said it was ready to engage in negotiations with Iran over the nuclear issue.

--IANS int/