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13 March, 2020
BAGHDAD/ TEHRAN/ WASHINGTON: The US has launched retaliatory air strikes against a pro-Iranian militia group in Iraq after a rocket attack killed two of its soldiers.
The strikes targeted five weapons storage facilities across the country, the US defence department said.
Two American and a British soldier were killed in Wednesday’s rocket attack on the Camp Taji Military Base.
The Iraqi military says three soldiers, two policemen and a civilian were killed in the US counter-strikes.
It said the US had carried out “a blatant attack” on Iraqi military sites in Babil province and an airport under construction in Karbala province. It also said the headquarters of the Popular Mobilisation (PM) forces – an umbrella militia which is officially part of the Iraqi security forces – was hit.
Earlier, a US commander said Kataib Hezbollah – one of the most powerful groups in the PM – was likely to have fired the rockets.
“The Iranian proxy group Kataib Hezbollah is the only group known to have previously conducted an indirect fire attack of this scale against US and coalition forces in Iraq,” Central Command chief Gen Kenneth McKenzie told a Senate committee.
The defence department confirmed a series of “defensive precision strikes” had been carried out by manned aircraft against Kataib Hezbollah facilities.
“These include facilities that housed weapons used to target US and coalition troops,” it said. “(The strikes) were defensive, proportional, and in direct response to the threat posed by Iranian-backed Shia militia groups.”
“The United States will not tolerate attacks against our people, our interests, or our allies,” Defence Secretary Mark Esper added. “We will take any action necessary to protect our forces.”
The US has accused Iran-backed militias of 13 similar attacks on Iraqi bases hosting coalition forces in the past year.
The killing of an American civilian in one such incident in December triggered a round of violence which ultimately led Trump to order the assassination of top Iranian General Qasem Soleimani and Kataib Hezbollah commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis the following month.
Thursday night’s attack was significant. US jets targeted Kataib Hezbollah and other Iran-backed militia groups in areas that even during the fight against the Islamic State (IS) group were considered a no-fly zone for coalition drones and planes.
It comes days before a 15 March deadline issued by pro-Iranian militia in Iraq for all US forces to leave the country and any Iraqis working with the US to stop doing so.
The strikes weren’t only a retaliation against the rocket attacks on the Taji base, which killed three members of the US-led coalition – they were also aimed at reducing the groups’ capabilities.
Although this was not a coalition-led operation, it increases the pressure on coalition forces combating IS here in Iraq. After the US killing of Soleimani, the Iraqi parliament voted to expel all foreign forces, especially the US, from the country.
The coalition remains here as a guest of the Iraqi government – but some Shia Muslim militia say US forces are occupiers and they will not stop attacking US bases until they leave Iraq completely. (Int’l News Desk)
