US forces in Iraq attacked in an airstrike on a number of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) facilities in the western Anbar province, leaving a number of casualties.
The PMU, commonly known by the Arabic name Hashd al-Sha’abi, confirmed the US forces in the country have carried out the airstrike on the 35th and 36th brigades which the US said was aimed at Kata’ib Hezbollah in Iraq.
Kata’ib Hezbollah spokesman, Sayyed Jaafar Al-Husseini, told Al-Manar TV in a phone call that 24 martyrs and more than 50 were wounded in the US raids. Al-Husseini warned that the US aggression will be met with an appropriate response.
According to early reports, five facilities run by the Iraqi PMU forces in Anbar province and neighboring Syria were targeted in the attack on Sunday.
Reuters quoted PMU and other Iraqi military sources as saying that several Iraqi fighters were killed in the airstrike on their headquarters near the western Qaim district in Iraq’s Anbar province close to the border with Syria.
The report added that the strike was likely carried out by drones and ambulances were seen heading to the area.
The attack came after American officials claimed on Friday that a “US contractor” had been killed in what they described as a rocket attack targeting an Iraqi military base housing US and Iraqi forces in the Arab country’s north. The US accused Kata’ib Hezbollah of involvement in the rocket attack on the K1 military base outside Kirkuk, northern Iraq.
Shortly after the attack, the US Department of Defense, Pentagon, issued a statement, announcing that it had carried out what it called “defensive strikes” in Iraq and Syria against the PMU facilities. The Pentagon added that it had targeted three locations of the Iraqi fighters in Iraq and two in Syria.
“In response to repeated Kata’ib Hezbollah (KH) attacks on Iraqi bases that host Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) coalition forces, US forces have conducted precision defensive strikes against five KH facilities in Iraq and Syria that will degrade [the group’s] ability to conduct future attacks against OIR forces,” Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said.
It’s worth noting that Iraq’s PMU played a major role in the liberation of ISIL-held areas to the south, northeast and north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, after the terrorists launched an offensive in the country, overrunning vast swathes in the country.
Source: Al-Manar Website
