The US military launched strikes in Iraq on Monday against facilities of pro-Iranian armed movements, in retaliation for an earlier drone strike that injured “three US servicemen”, one of whom is in “critical” condition, a press release said. of the Pentagon.

The US is bombing faction positions Kataeb Hezbollah (“God’s Party Brigades”), a member of the alliance of Hasd as Shaabi (“Popular Mobilization Units”), which is part of the Iraqi regular forces.

Since mid-October, more than 100 rocket or drone attacks have been launched against US and international anti-jihadist coalition forces in Iraqi and Syrian territory. The responsibility for most of them was assumed by “Islamic Resistance in Iraq“, a nebula believed to represent pro-Iranian armed groups, components of Hashd al-Shaabi.

At the same time, a general of the Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s ideological army, was killed in Syria in a bombing attributed to Israel.

Sayed Razi Mousavi was the coordinator of the military alliance between Syria and Iran and a partner of Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force, the elite Guards Corps, who was killed by a US drone strike in Iraq in 2020.

In a first reaction, the Guards of the Revolution warned that Israel would pay for Mousavi’s death while Iran’s President Ibrahim Rice warned that Israel “he will surely pay for this crime».

Washington maintains around 900 troops deployed in Syria and another nearly 2,500 in Iraq as part of the operation against the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group by an international coalition formed in 2014.