Baghdad, Iraq:

U.S. strikes against pro-Iran armed groups in western Iraq have killed at least 16 people, including civilians, and injured 23 others, Iraqi government spokesman Bassem al-Awadi said on Saturday.

Al-Awadi said in a statement that the attack hit “locations in the Akashat and Qaim regions, including areas where our security forces are stationed.”

The U.S. launched the airstrike on Friday in retaliation for a drone strike on a base near the border with Jordan, Syria and Iraq that killed three U.S. military personnel.

Washington blamed the unclaimed attack on the Iraqi Islamic Resistance, a loose alliance of pro-Iranian militants opposed to U.S. support for Israel in Gaza.

Tehran denies any link to the attack.

On Friday, a White House spokesman said the United States “warned the Iraqi government before the attack.”

But Baghdad denied any coordination with Washington before the bombing.

Al-Awadi accused the United States of “deceiving and distorting facts” and called the suggestion “baseless claims aimed at misleading international public opinion and evading legal responsibility.” What he said violated international law.

“This aggressive air strike will push the security situation in Iraq and the region to the edge of the abyss,” the spokesman said.

Al-Awadi condemned the use of Iraqi territory as a “battlefield for settling scores” and reiterated his government’s call for the U.S.-led international anti-jihadist coalition to withdraw from Iraq.

He said the coalition “deviated from its assigned tasks and mandates” and “endangered Iraq’s security and stability.”

The United States has deployed about 2,500 troops in Iraq and about 900 in Syria as part of a coalition formed to fight the Islamic State group in 2014, a year when the jihadist group captured about a third of Iraq. territory.

Since mid-October, coalition forces in Iraq and Syria have carried out more than 165 drone and rocket attacks, most of which have been claimed by Iraqi Islamic resistance groups.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)