PMF commander succumbs to wounds from a U.S. strike: source
Shafaq News/ A commander of Iraq's al-Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces-PMF) has reportedly succumbed to wounds he sustained during a U.S. airstrike earlier this week.
Yesterday, U.S. military claimed 85 targets hit at seven locations in Iraq and Syria after three US soldiers were killed in Jordan, allegedly by Iran-backed paramilitary groups.
A source told Shafaq News Agency that the slain Iraqi officer was the commander of the third company in the PMF's anti-Tank unit who suffered life threatening injuries in a U.S. airstrike in western Iraq.
The U.S. military launched an air assault on dozens of sites in Iraq and Syria used by Iranian-backed militias and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard on Friday night, in the opening salvo of retaliation for the drone strike that killed three U.S. troops in Jordan last weekend.
The massive barrage of strikes hit more than 85 targets at seven locations, including command and control headquarters, intelligence centres, rockets and missiles, drone and ammunition storage sites and other facilities that were connected to the militias or the IRGC’s Quds Force, the Guard's expeditionary unit that handles Tehran's relationship with and arming of regional militias. U.S. President Joe Biden made it clear in a statement that there will be more to come.
The U.S. strikes appeared to stop short of directly targeting Iran or senior leaders of the Revolutionary Guard Quds Force within its borders, as the U.S. tries to prevent the conflict from escalating even further. Iran has denied it was behind the Jordan attack.
Though one of the main Iran-backed groups, Kataib Hezbollah, said it was suspending attacks on American troops, others have vowed to continue fighting, vowing to champion the Palestinian cause while the war in Gaza shows no sign of ending.
On Friday, a White House spokesperson said the United States had "warned the Iraqi government before the strikes."
The spokesperson to the Iraqi government, Basem al-Awwadi, confirmed the attack hit "locations in the Akashat and al-Qaim regions, including areas where our security forces are stationed," but denied there had been any coordination with Washington prior to the bombings.
He said the attacks left at least 16 people, including civilians, and wounded 23.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed that 18 people were killed after 27 targets were hit.
The United States carried out the strikes on Friday in retaliation for the killing of three US military personnel in a drone attack on a base close to Jordan's border with Syria and Iraq.
Washington blamed the unclaimed attack on the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a loose alliance of pro-Iran fighters opposed to US support for Israel in Gaza.
"This aggressive air strike will push the security situation in Iraq and the region to the brink of the abyss," spokesman al-Awwadi said. He also condemned the use of Iraq's territory as a "battleground for settling scores" and repeated his government's call for the withdrawal of the US-led international coalition in Iraq.
There are roughly 2,500 US troops deployed in Iraq and about 900 in Syria as part of the coalition formed in 2014 to fight the Islamic State group — the year the jihadist group overran around a third of Iraq.
Since mid-October, there have been more than 165 drone and rocket attacks against coalition troops in Iraq and Syria, with most being claimed by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq.
