A military official and another member of Hachd Al-Chaabi were killed on Thursday, January 4, in Baghdad in a “drone strike” attributed to the United States, announced this Iraqi organization bringing together armed factions close to Iran. “The deputy operations commander for Baghdad, Mushtaq Talib Al-Saidi”East “martyred in an American strike”specified the Al-Nujaba movement, one of its factions, pro-Iranian and anti-American, in a press release, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The drone attack targeted “a logistics support center for Hachd Al-Chaabi” in the east of the Iraqi capital, said a security official on condition of anonymity, who specifies that “two members [du Hachd Al-Chaabi] owere killed, and seven others injured”. A source within Hachd Al-Chaabi confirmed this report and attributed the strike to American forces.
Asked by journalists about this attack, a US military official did not immediately react. On videos broadcast by a Telegram channel close to Hachd Al-Chaabi, and consulted by AFP, columns of smoke are visible from the building located on Palestine Street, a busy shopping street in Baghdad.
The target of several bombings
The Iraqi government blamed the international anti-jihadist coalition, led by the United States, for the raid which killed the two members of Hachd Al-Chaabi, citing a ” assault “. “The Iraqi armed forces hold the international coalition forces responsible for this attack”wrote Yahya Rassoul, a spokesperson for Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Chia Al-Soudani, in a statement, where he speaks of“dangerous escalation and aggression”.
Hachd Al-Chaabi is a coalition of former Shiite paramilitaries close to Iran and now integrated into the regular Iraqi forces. These forces have been the target of several bombings in Iraq in recent weeks, some of which were claimed by the United States.
American troops and those of the international anti-jihadist coalition deployed in Iraq and Syria have been targeted almost daily by drone and rocket attacks since the start of the war in October between Israel and Palestinian Hamas in Gaza.
Most of these attacks were claimed by a group called the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an armed group affiliated with Hashd Al-Shaabi which opposes American support for Israel. Since October 17, the date of the explosion at Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, the United States has recorded more than a hundred attacks in Iraq and Syria against its troops.