A vehicle belonging to an armed group close to Iran, part of the Hashd al-Shaabi (“Popular Mobilization Units”), was the target of an air strike on Tuesday, two AFP sources in the Iraqi security forces said on Tuesday, before the US announced that it was their own energy with “some” dead.

The spokesman for the Pentagon, Wing Commander Pat Ryder, said that the strike was carried out in retaliation for an attack the previous day, with a “short-range ballistic missile”, against the Ain al-Assad base, where American troops and forces of the international anti-jihadist coalition are stationed.

The attack injured eight people and caused minor damage to the base, according to the spokesman.

He clarified that the American retaliatory strike targeted a “vehicle of a paramilitary organization supported by Iran” and that “some” of its members were killed.

Officially, the Iraqi security forces have not commented on this episode.

The strike took place just before dawn against the Hasd al-Shaabi, former paramilitaries who are now formally part of the Iraqi regular army.

Asked about this by Agence France-Presse, a Hashd al-Shaabi official confirmed the strike and spoke of “one fighter dead and three others wounded.”

66 attacks

An Iraqi Interior Ministry official said for his part that the vehicle was hit “on the highway to Abu Ghraib”, about thirty kilometers west of the capital.

Both Iraqi officials assessed that the strike was carried out by a UAV, before the Pentagon announced that it was carried out by a manned aircraft (including an AC-130 flying machine gun).

The car was part of a convoy, moving along with three others, according to AFP’s source at the interior ministry. Both Iraqi officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the issue.

The attack on the Ain al-Assad base and the US retaliation come against the backdrop of escalating tensions in the region following the outbreak of war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Deputy Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said yesterday during a briefing of accredited editors that US forces and the international counter-jihadist coalition have been the target of 66 rocket, missile or drone attacks since October 17, ten days after the unprecedented Hamas raid. in areas of Israeli territory.

Some 62 American soldiers have been injured in the anti-American attacks, according to Sabrina Singh, who clarified that this number does not include the account of the attack that took place the day before Monday at the Ain al-Assad base.

War of attrition

Armed groups close to Iran have threatened to attack US bases because of Washington’s support for Israel, which declared war on Hamas after the Palestinian Islamist movement’s unprecedented attack on Israeli territory on October 7.

In recent weeks, responsibility for most attacks against US and coalition forces has been claimed by an organization calling itself the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq” through channels on the Telegram platform linked to armed factions close to Iran.

The Hashd announced yesterday that one of its fighters was killed in “battle” against US forces in Iraq, without clarifying the circumstances of his death, nor specifying whether it was the one killed in Abu Ghraib.

The funeral of Fadel al-Makoussi took place yesterday in a mosque in Baghdad, with hundreds of fighters of Hasd al-Shaabi present, an AFP journalist found out.

His coffin was draped with the flag of the Hezbollah Brigades. The powerful component of the Hashd recently assured that the attacks of the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq” are part of “strategic (a.k.a. war) attrition”.

In retaliation for the attacks, Washington bombed facilities linked to Iran on Syrian soil. The US also announced sanctions against seven people linked to two Iraqi armed groups it describes as pro-Iranian.

Washington keeps about 900 of its troops deployed in Syria and another nearly 2,500 in Iraq as part of operations against the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group.