US drone strike against militia members ‘violates’ Iraqi sovereignty, says spokesperson

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) – The US drone strike that killed military leaders of Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah on Wednesday night violates Iraqi sovereignty, the Iraqi premier’s military spokesperson said.

A drone strike at 9:30 PM (Baghdad time) hit a vehicle in the Mashtal neighborhood in Baghdad’s Rusafa, where Abu Baqir al-Saadi and Haj Arkan Aliawi, leaders of Kataib Hezbollah, were killed.

The strike “violates Iraqi sovereignty”, Yehia Rasool, the military spokesperson for Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ Al-Sudani, said in a statement on Thursday, slamming the US-led Coalition against ISIS for the attack.

The US Central Command on Wednesday overnight announced that one of those targeted in the attack was responsible for “directly planning and participating in attacks on U.S. forces in the region.”

Since the eruption of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza in October last year, the US-led Coalition against ISIS troops has come under more than 160 attacks that are often claimed by Iranian-backed groups in the region.

Earlier on Feb. 3, the U.S. military struck more than 85 targets in both Iraq and Syria, killing at least 13 members of Iran-backed armed groups in Syria, and 16 in Iraq.

The strikes were retaliation for the death of three U.S. Army Reserve soldiers at a remote US base in Jordan on Jan. 28 by a drone attack carried out by an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia group.