Three dead as US drone strike targets Iran-linked militia leader in Baghdad

Three dead as US drone strike targets Iran-linked militia leader in Baghdad

The Guardian-Feb8th2024

The US military presence in Iraq has become a “factor for instability” and must be ended, the Iraq military said on Thursday as it responded angrily to US drone strike on a car in Baghdad that killed three members of the powerful Kataib Hezbollah militia.

Yehia Rasool, spokesman for the commander of the military forces, accused the US of conducting “a blatant assassination through an airstrike in the heart of a residential neighborhood in the capital, Baghdad, showing no regard for civilian lives or international laws.

“By this act, the American forces jeopardize civil peace, violate Iraqi sovereignty, and disregard the safety and lives of our citizens”.

Claiming the US mission deviates increasingly from its stated objectives in Iraq, he said “this trajectory compels the Iraqi government more than ever to terminate the mission of this coalition, which has become a factor for instability and threatens to entangle Iraq in the cycle of conflict”.

The US is already in talks with Iraqi officials about their continued presence, but the attack in the capital Baghdad, undertaken without any prior consultation, is going to make those talks even more fraught. Calls are likely to intensify from Iranian inclined political forces inside the country for a withdrawal date to be set.

The strike late on Wednesday came on a main thoroughfare in the Mashtal neighbourhood in eastern Baghdad. The US said they had targeted and killed a Kataib Hezbollah commander responsible for the January 27 attack on a US base on the Jordan-Syrian border that led to the death of three US soldiers, and injury to dozens. One of the three killed was Wissam Mohammed “Abu Bakr” al-Saadi, the commander in charge of Kataib Hezbollah’s drone operations in Syria, and so the likely mastermind of the January 27 attack.

US military bases have been under sporadic assault from Iranian backed militia for years, but the pace of those attacks increased after October 7, and the Hamas killing of hundreds of Israelis. It is estimated that US and allied troops have been attacked more than 165 times since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.

Last week US deploying B-1 bombers from the US fired at 85 Iranian backed militia sites in both Syria and Iraq reportedly killing 40 people. At the time the US defence secretary Loyd Austin said “this is the start of our response”. On Tuesday Israel struck the Shuyrat airbase and several locations on the outskirts of Homs, Syria.

In a statement US Central Command CENTCOM claimed responsibility for the Baghad killing and said there are “no indications of collateral damage or civilian casualties at this time.”

“The United States will continue to take necessary action to protect our people. We will not hesitate to hold responsible all those who threaten our forces’ safety,” it added.