US airstrikes on the night of Friday into Saturday targeted positions of armed groups close to Iran in western Iraq, particularly in the al-Qaim sector on the border with Syria, two Agence France-Presse sources in the Iraqi security forces said.

Condemning the “violation of Iraqi national sovereignty”, General Yahya Rasool, a spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, warned in a press release issued against the potentially “catastrophic consequences for the security and stability of Iraq and the region”.

“An installation of armed groups in the Al Qaim area has been targeted, it is a warehouse of light weapons, according to the first information,” said an interior ministry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official spoke of “eight civilians injured” in this area.

A second bombardment took place in the Al-Aqasat area, further south, always close to the border, against an operations command center of the Hashd al-Shaabi (“Popular Mobilization Units”), an alliance of paramilitary factions close to Iran and now formally part of the Iraqi armed forces.

A Hashd al-Shaabi official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed the two bombings, in al-Qaim, which he said targeted a position of Kataeb Hezbollah (“Brigades of the Party of God”), and in al-Aqasat, which caused “injuries”.

At the same time, the joint command center of the US armed forces responsible for the Middle East region (CENTCOM, “central command”), confirmed late last night that “air strikes were launched in Iraq and Syria”, targeting factions close to the Iran and members of the Quds Force (“Jerusalem”) of the Revolutionary Guards, an elite body of the Iranian military. The Quds Force is the force that conducts Iranian military operations abroad.

The strikes “used more than 125 precision munitions,” CENTCOM said via X (formerly Twitter), adding that more than 85 locations, including command centers, drone and missile storage facilities, belonging to paramilitary and Iranian forces were targeted. and “facilitated attacks against US forces and the (international anti-jihadist) coalition.”

The White House had said it would retaliate for a Jan. 28 drone strike it blamed on militants close to Iran that killed three U.S. service members at a support base in Jordan on the border with Syria and about ten kilometers from Iraq.

Since mid-October, there have been more than 165 attacks by drones, rockets and short-range ballistic missiles against US troops deployed as part of the anti-jihadist coalition mission in Iraq and Syria.

The responsibility for most of them was claimed by the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq”, an umbrella organization of militant armed groups close to Iran. Her actions are part of the explosive atmosphere in the region against the background of the war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, better known by its acronym, Hamas.