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US military pounds three Iraqi resistance sites following retaliatory strikes

Iraqi fighters from the anti-terror Kata'ib Hezbollah group march during a military parade marking International Quds Day, in the capital Baghdad on May 31, 2019. (Photo by AFP)

The US military has carried out air strikes against three sites used by anti-terror resistance forces in Iraq, after a military base in the country’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region where American occupation troops and trainers are stationed came under a drone attack.

“US military forces conducted necessary and proportionate strikes on three facilities used by Kata’ib Hezbollah and affiliated groups in Iraq,” the Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said in a statement.

An Iraqi security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Arabic-language al-Sumaria television channel that 12 service members of the Ministry of Interior as well as seven fighters from the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), also known as Hashd al-Sha’abi, have sustained injuries in a US strike against a military facility in Hillah city, located 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of the capital Baghdad.

Press TV sources said that one PMU member has also been killed in the strike.

“These precision strikes are a response to a series of attacks against US personnel in Iraq and Syria, including an attack by Kata’ib Hezbollah and affiliated groups on Erbil Air Base earlier today,” Austin said.

That attack wounded three US military personnel, one critically, US National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a separate statement.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of anti-terror fighters, in a statement published on its Telegram channel, claimed responsibility for the strike, which was carried out with a one-way attack drone.

Biden was briefed on the attack on Monday morning, and directed the strikes in a call with Austin and other national security officials after ordering the Pentagon to prepare a response, the White House National Security Council said.

At President Joe Biden’s direction, the US military carried out the strikes at 1:45 GMT on Tuesday, likely killing “a number of Kata’ib Hezbollah” members and destroying multiple facilities used by the group, General Michael Erik Kurilla, head of US Central Command (CENTCOM), said in a statement.

The strikes on the US-run military installation in Iraq and neighboring Syria come amid growing anti-US sentiments over Washington’s firm support for Israel’s war against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, which has killed at least 20,674 people, most of them women and children. Another 54,536 individuals have been wounded as well.

The Israeli regime launched the war after Gaza’s resistance groups conducted Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, their biggest operation against the occupying entity in years.

Since the onset of the war on October 7, the United States has backed Israel’s ferocious attacks on Palestinian territory as a means of “self-defense.”

The US House of Representatives on November 2 passed a standalone $14.3-billion military assistance package for Israel. The legislation, however, is yet to clear the Senate. 

Washington has also vetoed United Nations Security Council resolutions that called for a ceasefire in Gaza.


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