US airstrikes kill 25 Iran-backed militia fighters in Iraq and Syria

Shahla Omar

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – US forces conducted airstrikes on five facilities belonging to an Iran-backed militia in Iraq and Syria on Sunday night, the US Department of Defense has said. Twenty-five fighters were killed in strikes on a headquarters in western Iraq, according to a militia statement.

The "precision defensive airstrikes" were conducted on three Kataib Hezbollah locations in Iraq and two in Syria, according to a statement from US Secretary of Defense assistant Jonathan Hoffman, in response to repeated attacks on Iraqi bases hosting US-led coalition personnel.

Twenty-five people were killed and 51 injured, according to a statement from from the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) - an umbrella group of Iran-backed militias in Iraq that includes Kataib Hezbollah. The death toll is likely to rise, the statement said, due to the severity of injuries.

Airstrikes at a base on the Iraq-Syria border occurred at 7 pm on Sunday evening, according to Iraqi Security Media Cell. 

Among those killed was militia commander Abu Ali Khazali, according to a statement from the PMF.

A base in al-Qaim, western Iraq, was one of the targeted locations, a US defense official told Rudaw English. 

The five locations included "weapon storage facilities and command and control locations that KH [Kataib Hezbollah] uses to plan and execute attacks on OIR [Operation Inherent Resolve] coalition forces," according to the US Defense statement. 

The strikes "will degrade KH's ability to conduct future attacks against OIR coalition forces," the statement added.

Sunday's airstrikes follow an attack on the K1 military base in Kirkuk province on Friday night. 

One US civilian contractor was killed when ten missiles struck the base. At least two Iraqi policemen were killed, according to a federal police source. Several US and Iraqi service members were also injured, US officials from the Combined Joint Task Force said on Saturday morning.

The US blamed Friday's attack on Kataib Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militia that forms part of the PMF, a powerful umbrella group of militias in Iraq that operate with little Iraqi government oversight.

Iraqi bases hosting US military personnel have been subject to a spate of attacks in the last two months. Iran-backed groups are suspected by the US and its allies to have conducted the attacks.

Iraq's biggest parliamentary alliances have issued widespread condemnation of the airstrikes. The Nasr Coalition called the attack an "American aggression against Iraqi sovereignty."

"The Nasr Coalition...demands the government [of Iraq] commit the American forces present on Iraqi soil to the terms of the agreements signed between the two countries...such attacks will harm security, stability and bilateral relations," their statement read.