WASHINGTON, US
The United States carried out a drone strike in the Iraqi capital on Wednesday evening, killing three members of the Kataib Hezbollah militia, including a senior commander.
Washington’s Central Command
(CENTCOM) has taken responsibility for the attack.
This comes as the US
government acknowledged that it did not notify officials in Baghdad about
airstrikes on Iraqi soil last Friday, despite initially claiming they had been
warned ahead of time. A top US spokesperson insisted there was no “intent to
deceive,” chalking up the mishap to a simple error.
A car in which the trio was
travelling was struck in the Mashtal neighborhood of Baghdad, at around 9:30 pm
local time. Local outlet Sabereen News described the attack as “American
aggression.”
Photos circulating on social
media showed the remnants of what seems to have been a Hellfire missile,
commonly used by US attack drones.
Two of the dead have since
been identified as Haj Arkhan Al-Alawi and Wissam Mohammed ‘Abu Bakr’ al-Saadi,
who was in charge of Kataib Hezbollah’s operations in Syria, RT reports.
In a statement posted on X,
(formerly Twitter), CENTCOM said it had carried out “a unilateral strike in
Iraq in response to the attacks on US service members, killing a Kataib
Hezbollah commander responsible for directly planning and participating in attacks
on US forces in the region.”
The US has blamed Kataib
Hezbollah for last month’s attack that killed three US soldiers at a base on
the Syria-Jordan-Iraq border. Following a series of retaliatory US airstrikes,
the group announced it would “suspend” attacks.
Local media in Baghdad have
reported that crowds of protesters gathered at the strike site chanting slogans
branding the US “Greater Satan.”
Al-Saadi is the most senior
Kataib Hezbollah member to have been killed in Iraq since the January 2020
drone strike that killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and Iranian General Qassem
Soleimani. Tehran had responded to that assassination by bombarding US bases with
ballistic missiles.
Shia militias have attacked US
bases in the region with rockets and drones at least 150 times since last
October, following Israel’s declaration of war on Hamas in the aftermath of the
militant group’s deadly raids from Gaza.
The White House has blamed
Tehran for the attacks but has stopped short of attacking Iran as some members
of Congress have demanded. The US has continued to station troops in Iraq even
after the government in Baghdad explicitly requested them to leave. The
Pentagon’s presence in Syria is illegal under international law.
Speaking to reporters on
Tuesday, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby corrected a
prior statement about the “pre-notification to Iraqi officials” before last
week’s air raid, which targeted more than 85 sites across both Iraq and neighbouring
Syria.
“I deeply apologise for the
error, and I regret any confusion that it caused. It was based on information
we had or that was provided to me in those early hours after the strikes. Turns
out that information was incorrect,” Kirby said, adding, “I hope that you’ll
understand there was no ill-intent behind it, no deliberate intent to deceive
or to be wrong.”
No comments:
Post a Comment