Several bombings targeted positions of pro-Iran armed groups in western Iraq, near the border with Syria, on Friday night, two Iraqi security sources told AFP.
“A headquarters of the armed factions in the Al Qaim area was targeted, according to preliminary information it is a light weapons depot,” said an Interior Ministry official, on condition of anonymity.
A second bombing took place in the Al Akashat regionfurther south and also near the border with Syria, against a command center for the operations of Hashd Al Shaabi, a coalition of former paramilitaries close to Iran, according to the official.
A Hashd Al Shaabi official, also on condition of anonymity, confirmed the two attacks and said that the bombing in Al Akashat left “injured people.”
The US military command for the Middle East (Centcom) confirmed that it carried out “air strikes in Iraq and Syria” and specified that The targets were pro-Iran groups and members of the Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
In its statement, Centcom assured that the bombings targeted more than 85 locations, including command and intelligence centers, as well as storage facilities for rockets, missiles and drones.
The United States committed to carrying out these bombings in rretaliation to drone attack that killed three soldiers at the end of January at a base located in the middle of the Jordanian desert, near the border with Syria.
Since mid-October, there have been more than 165 attacks against US troops and those of the anti-jihadist coalition in Iraq and Syria, in a tense regional context as a result of the war between Israel and Hamas.
Most were claimed by the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq,” an alliance of armed groups linked to Iran that claims to act in support of the Palestinians and demands that the United States military withdraw from Iraq.
AFP
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