Baghdad: US air strikes against a pro-Iran group in Iraq killed at least 25 fighters, a paramilitary umbrella said Monday, triggering anger in a country caught up in mounting tensions between Tehran and Washington.
Sunday night’s attacks saw US planes hit several bases belonging to the Hezbollah brigades, one of the most radical factions of Hashed al-Shaabi, a Tehran-backed Iraqi paramilitary coalition.
The strikes ‘killed 25 and wounded 51, including commanders and fighters, and the toll could yet rise’, said the Hashed, which holds major sway in Iraq. Victims were still being pulled from the rubble of bases near Al-Qaim, an Iraqi district bordering Syria, it said Monday.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said the US had ‘shown its firm support for terrorism and its neglect for the independence and sovereignty of countries’ by carrying out the attacks. Washington, itself a key ally of Baghdad, must accept the consequences of its ‘illegal act’, he added.
US Defence Secretary Mark Esper described the attacks – which hit three locations in Iraq and two in neighbouring Syria – as ‘successful’, and did not rule out further military action against Iran-backed militias.
The strikes were in retaliation for a series of rocket attacks since late October against US interests in Iraq, including a barrage of more than 30 fired on Friday at an Iraqi base in Kirkuk, where a US civilian contractor was killed.
The office of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who is highly revered by Iraq’s Shiite majority, denounced the attacks.
“The authorities must prevent Iraq being used as a place for the settling of accounts,” it said in reference to growing tensions between the United States and Iran.
These tensions have soared since Washington pulled out of a multilateral nuclear agreement with Tehran last year and imposed crippling sanctions.
AFP