A US military official confirmed a “self-defense strike on an imminent threat” that targeted a drone staging site near Kirkuk on Sunday afternoon….reports Asian Lite News
A US air strike killed five Iraqi militants near the northern city of Kirkuk as they prepared to launch explosive projectiles at US forces in the country, three Iraqi security sources said, identifying them as members of an Iran-backed militia.
A US military official confirmed a “self-defense strike on an imminent threat” that targeted a drone staging site near Kirkuk on Sunday afternoon.
A statement by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group representing several Iraqi armed factions with close ties to Tehran, said five of its members had been killed, and vowed retaliation against US forces.
The group had claimed several attacks against US forces throughout Sunday.
Earlier Sunday, the US military official said US and international forces were attacked with multiple rockets at the Rumalyn Landing Zone in northeastern Syria, but there were no casualties or damage to infrastructure.
Iraqi armed groups have claimed more than 70 such attacks against US forces since Oct. 17 over Washington’s backing of Israel in its bombardment of Gaza.
The attacks paused during the recent Israel-Hamas cease-fire but have since resumed.
The US in November launched two series of strikes in Iraq against what it said were Iran-aligned armed groups who had engaged in attacks against their forces.
Those strikes killed at least 10 militants who were identified both as members of shadowy militia Kataeb Hezbollah and of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, an official security institution composed mainly of Shiite Muslim armed groups.
Iraq’s government condemned those strikes as escalatory and a violation of Iraqi sovereignty.
The United States has 900 troops in Syria and 2,500 in Iraq on a mission it says aims to advise and assist local forces trying to prevent a resurgence of Daesh, which in 2014 seized large swaths of both countries before being defeated.
Last month, eight members of the Iraqi paramilitary Hashd Shaabi forces were killed and four others were wounded by US airstrikes near the Iraqi capital Baghdad.
A statement by the Hashd Shaabi said on Wednesday that at 2:30 a.m. (2330 GMT on Tuesday), the US aircraft attacked positions of the Hashd Shaabi forces in the Jurf al-Nasr area, south of Baghdad, leaving eight of its fighters killed and wounding four others.
“We affirm our strong condemnation of this hostile act, which represents a blatant violation of Iraq’s sovereignty,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, the US Central Command said in a statement that the US aircraft conducted precision strikes in Iraq in direct response to the attacks against US and coalition forces by Iran and Iran-backed groups, Xinhua news agency reported.
A statement by the media office of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani said the US airstrikes constitute a clear violation of the coalition’s mission which is to fight the Islamic State militants on Iraqi soil.
The latest US airstrikes came after the Iraqi armed group “Islamic Resistance in Iraq,” an umbrella body for Iranian-backed Iraqi militias, claimed responsibility for carrying out a series of rocket and drone attacks on military bases housing US-led coalition forces in Iraq and Syria.