US says it killed Kataeb Hezbollah commander planning attack on its forces

It added that there were no signs of civilian casualties

Baghdad:

A commander of the Iran-backed Iraqi militant group Hezbollah was killed in a U.S. airstrike on Wednesday, the U.S. military said, with the Pentagon accusing the group of attacking Iraqi forces.

A statement from the military said: “(U.S.) forces launched a unilateral attack in Iraq in response to attacks on U.S. service members, killing a Kataib Hezbollah commander who was directly responsible for planning and participating in attacks on U.S. forces in the region. .” It did not name the commander.

It added that there were no signs of civilian casualties.

Two security sources who spoke on condition of anonymity said the commander was Abu Baqir al-Saadi, who was killed in a drone strike east of Baghdad.

One of the sources said three people were killed and that the targeted vehicle was used by Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a national security outfit made up of dozens of armed groups, many with close ties to Iran.

Hezbollah Kataeb fighters and commanders are part of the PMF. In January, three U.S. troops were killed in a drone strike near the Jordan-Syria border, which the Pentagon said bore the “footprint” of Kataib Hezbollah. The organization subsequently announced the suspension of military operations against US forces in the region.

Since the war in Gaza broke out in October, Iraq and Syria have witnessed almost daily tit-for-tat attacks between hard-line Iranian-backed armed groups and U.S. troops stationed in the region.

The United States attacked Iranian-backed groups in Iraq and Syria over the weekend and said it was just the beginning of its response to the killings of three American soldiers.

In January, a U.S. drone strike killed a senior militia commander in central Baghdad, an attack that Washington said was in response to drone and rocket attacks on its forces.

Iraqi special forces were on high alert in Baghdad on Wednesday and more troops were deployed in the Green Zone, which houses international diplomatic missions including the U.S. embassy, ​​a security source said.

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