Commander from Iran-backed group killed in US drone strike in Baghdad
- Kataeb Hezbollah’s Abu Baqir al-Saadi is said to have been responsible for planning and taking part on attacks on US forces in the area
- The strike comes days after the US hit Iran-linked targets in Iraq and Syria in retaliation for a drone attack that killed 3 American troops in Jordan
A commander from Kataeb Hezbollah, an Iran-backed armed group in Iraq that the Pentagon has blamed for attacking its troops, was killed in a US strike on Wednesday, the US military said.
“[US] forces conducted a unilateral strike in Iraq in response to the attacks on US service members, killing a Kataeb Hezbollah commander responsible for directly planning and participating in attacks on US forces in the region,” a statement from the military said. It did not name the commander.
It added that there were no indications of civilian casualties.
Two security sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the commander was Abu Baqir al-Saadi, killed in a drone strike on a vehicle in eastern Baghdad.
One of the sources said three people were killed and that the vehicle targeted was used by Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), a state security agency composed of dozens of armed groups, many of them close to Iran.
