A strike hit a base housing US troops in Iraq early Tuesday, causing “minor injuries to US personnel and damage to infrastructure,” a US military official in the country says.
The official said US forces “responded in self-defense against those who carried out the strike” on al-Asad military base in western Iraq. A second defense official confirmed that a US gunship was used in a retaliatory strike Tuesday after militants hit the base.
Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
Also early Tuesday, a drone strike on a highway west of Baghdad targeted two pickup trucks linked to the Kataeb Hezbollah militia, killing one militia member and injuring at least three others, two militia officials said.
The militia officials, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said the strike hit a convoy traveling from Anbar to Baghdad. Later on Tuesday, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a coalition of Iran-backed militias, issued a statement announcing the death of one of its members in Iraq in what it said was a US airstrike.
It was not immediately clear if the strike that killed the Kataeb Hezbollah member was the same one launched in retaliation to the attack on the al-Assad base.
The two incidents come as Iranian-backed militants have launched dozens of attacks on bases and facilities housing US personnel in Iraq and Syria since October 17.
While most of the more than five dozen attacks have been ineffective, at least 60 US personnel have reported minor injuries. The militant groups have said that the strikes are in retaliation for US support of Israel in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war following Hamas’s October 7 atrocities.
No comments:
Post a Comment