The United States on Tuesday admitted to a “drone” attack on a vehicle of pro-Iranian forces in Iraq that left one dead and three wounded, saying it was in response to another attack.
“US forces responded in self-defense against those who carried out the attack” said a US military official, answering questions in the early hours of Tuesday about a drone strike in the Abu Ghraib area, west of Baghdad, that targeted a vehicle belonging to the pro-Iranian armed group Hachd al-Chaabi.
The attack comes in a context of increased regional tensions, with the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The vehicle that was hit was part of a four-car caravan.
In the last days, Armed groups near Iran have threatened to attack US troops deployed in the Middle East over Washington’s support for Israel in its war against Hamas.
Most of the attacks on American soldiers and on the international coalition in Iraq were claimed by a group called Islamic Resistance in Iraq, on the social network Telegram.
Today, This movement announced that one of its fighters had been killed in the battle against US forces in Iraq, without reporting the circumstances of this death or specifying whether he had been killed in Abu Ghraib.
A funeral took place near a mosque in Baghdad, in the presence of several hundred Hachd al-Chaabi fighters.
U.S. troops deployed in Iraq and Syria have been attacked at least 61 times since mid-October, with dozens of U.S. service members suffering minor injuries, U.S. military officials said.
In retaliation for the attacks, Washington bombed locations in Syria linked to Iran.
The United States also adopted sanctions against seven people linked to two pro-Iranian Iraqi armed groups.
Washington has about 900 soldiers in Syria and nearly 2,500 in Iraq fighting the jihadist organization Islamic State (IS).
Source: DN
