US strikes targets in Iraq after drone attack injures troops
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Iraqi security forces are on alert following US air strikes against supposed Iran-backed terrorists in Iraq.
PHOTO: AFP
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BAGHDAD – The United States military launched strikes on three installations in Iraq, targeting what it said is a terrorist group backed by Iran that Washington has accused of a series of attacks on American personnel, including one on Dec 25 that left three people injured.
The back and forth underscores the risk of the Israel-Hamas war widening into a broader conflagration.
Iran said an Israeli air strike in Damascus on Dec 25 killed a senior commander of its Revolutionary Guard.
Meanwhile, the US has assembled a coalition of militaries willing to help protect Red Sea shipping lanes after a number of vessels came under attack by Iran-backed Houthi rebels
Iran backs Hamas and other regional groups. It has denied that it is helping militants
“At President (Joe) Biden’s direction, US military forces conducted necessary and proportionate strikes on three facilities used by Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated groups in Iraq,” US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement late on Dec 25.
In a separate statement, the US Central Command said, “early assessments indicate that these US air strikes destroyed the targeted facilities and likely killed a number of Kataib Hezbollah militants”.
Centcom added there were no indications that civilian lives were affected.
Iraq condemned the strikes, with a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office saying the US targeted “Iraqi military sites” and that a member of the country’s armed forces was killed.
The Christmas Day strikes followed what the White House described as a drone attack on US forces in northern Iraq that wounded three service members, including one critically.
Mr Biden was briefed on that attack on Christmas morning and, in an afternoon call with Mr Austin and other national security officials, ordered the retaliatory response.
Kataib Hezbollah is an Iraqi insurgent group backed by Iran that has been designated as a terrorist organisation by the US since 2009, according to the Centre for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.
The group, also known as the Hezbollah Brigades, took credit for the attack on US troops, the White House said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pushed back on international criticism of the continuing war in Gaza, saying peace will only be possible when Hamas, which killed 1,200 people when it attacked Israel on Oct 7,
The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza says Israeli attacks have since killed more than 20,000 people.
In a column late on Dec 25 in the Wall Street Journal, Mr Netanyahu said Gaza needs to be demilitarised and Palestinian society “deradicalised”.
He wrote that eliminating Hamas “is the only proportional response to prevent the repeat of such horrific atrocities”. BLOOMBERG
