At least one member of an Iraqi pro-Iranian group was killed and 24 others were injured in the early hours when the USA launched airstrikes against three installations of pro-Iranian organizations on Iraqi soil, in retaliation for a drone attack yesterday against a base in Arbil where US troops are stationed..

The attack injured “three American servicemen”, one of whom is in “critical” condition, according to the US Pentagon.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced that the US military had launched “necessary and proportionate strikes against three facilities used by the Kataeb Hezbollah and organizations associated with it”.

Asked by AFP, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said that, among other things, the American bombings hit an installation of the Hasd al-Shaabi (“Popular Mobilization Units”) in Hila, the capital of Babylon province, south of Baghdad. There, one person was killed and 20 others were injured.

Another four people were injured in a second strike, in Wasit, southern Iraq.

Kataeb Hezbollah (“Brigades of the Party of God”) has been designated a “terrorist organization” by the State Department since 2009.

The attack on the American base in Arbil with a one-way drone was undertaken by the so-called Islamic Resistance in Iraqa nebula believed to have been created by pro-Iranian armed groups, components of the Hashd al-Shaabi, an alliance officially affiliated with the Iraqi regular forces.

Kataeb Hezbollah is also part of Hasd.

Baghdad speaks of “hostile action” by the USA

Amid concerns of regional conflagration over the war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas, since mid-October more than 100 rocket or drone attacks have been launched against US forces and the international anti-jihadist coalition in Iraqi and Syrian territory.

“The USA they will take action at the time and in the manner they choose” to retaliation “if these attacks continue,” Watson said in a press release released by the White House.

From the side of government of Iraq spoke of “hostile action” of the USA, stating that a “member” of the security forces was killed and 18 people, including civilians, were injured. He warned that the strikes “harm bilateral relations” and are “unacceptable” violation of Iraqi “national sovereignty».

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.