An attack targeted a vehicle belonging to the pro-Iranian armed group Hachd al-Chaabi near Baghdad on Tuesday, two sources within the security services told AFP, before the United States announced it was the origin and that they caused “several deaths”. .
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Pentagon spokesman General Pat Ryder said the attack was in response to the previous day’s attack by a “short-range ballistic missile” on the Ain al-Assad base, where American troops and the international anti-jihadist coalition are based.
Eight people were injured in the attack and the base suffered minor damage, the spokesman said.
He then claimed that the American counterattack was carried out “against the vehicle of an Iranian-backed militia,” in which “several” members were killed.
Iraqi security forces have not issued an official statement on the incident.
The attack targeted a vehicle belonging to Hachd al-Chaabi, former paramilitaries now integrated into the regular Iraqi forces, shortly before dawn.
When questioned by AFP, a Hachd al-Chaabi official confirmed the attack and reported that “one fighter was killed and three others were injured.”
66 attacks
An Iraqi Interior Ministry official told him that the vehicle had been attacked “on the highway near Abu Ghraib,” about thirty kilometers west of the capital.
The two officials had estimated that the attack was carried out by a drone before the Pentagon announced that it was an American aircraft.
According to the Interior Ministry, the vehicle was part of a convoy of four cars. Because of the sensitivity of the topic, the two officials spoke on condition of anonymity.
The attack on the Ain al-Assad base and the American response come against the backdrop of heightened regional tensions following the outbreak of war between Israel and the Palestinian movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Pentagon deputy spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters on Tuesday that US forces and the international anti-jihadist coalition stationed in Iraq and Syria have been fighting since October 17, 10 days after Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israeli soil. They were the target of rocket fire or drone attacks 66 times.
According to Sabrina Singh, about 62 American soldiers were injured in the attacks. She clarified that this figure does not include the death toll in Monday’s attack on the Ain al-Assad base.
“Attrition strategy”
Iran-aligned armed groups have threatened to attack American forces stationed in the Middle East because of Washington’s support of Israel in its war against the Palestinian Hamas.
In recent weeks, most of the attacks on American soldiers and the coalition have been claimed on Telegram application channels by a group called the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which is close to pro-Iranian armed groups.
The movement announced Tuesday that one of its fighters had been killed “fighting” American forces in Iraq, without specifying the circumstances of that death or whether he was killed at Abu Ghraib.
According to an AFP journalist, a funeral for that fighter, Fadel al-Maksoussi, was held on Tuesday near a mosque in Baghdad in the presence of several hundred Hachd al-Chaabi fighters.
His coffin was covered with a flag in the colors of the Hezbollah Brigades. This influential Hachd group had recently asserted that the attacks by the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq” were part of a “strategy of attrition.”
In retaliation for the attacks, Washington bombed sites in Syria linked to Iran. The United States also imposed sanctions on seven individuals linked to two pro-Iran armed groups in Iraq.
Washington has around 900 soldiers in Syria and almost 2,500 in Iraq fighting the jihadist organization Islamic State (IS).