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THE commander of an Iran-backed militia accountable for the deaths of three US troops has been killed in a drone strike in Baghdad.
A key member of the Kata’ib Hezbollah militia and two of his guards had been killed when their car was struck on Wednesday evening.
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The Iran-backed militia is claimed to have been accountable for a drone strike that killed three American troops in Jordan final month.
A press release from the US Central Command confirmed it had launched a “unilateral strike” that has killed the commander accountable for the unprecedented assault.
It stated: “At 9.30pm February 7, US Central Command (CENTCOM) forces performed a unilateral strike in Iraq in response to the assaults on US service members, killing a Kata’ib Hezbollah commander accountable for immediately planning and taking part in assaults on U.S. forces in the area.
“There are no indications of collateral harm or civilian casualties right now.
“The United States will proceed to take vital motion to guard our folks.
“We will not hesitate to hold responsible all those who threaten our forces’ safety.”
Sgt William Rivers, 46, Specialist Kennedy Sanders, 24, and Specialist Breonna Moffett, 23, had been killed in the assault on the Tower 22 base in Jordan, which injured one other 34.
The strike marked the primary US deaths by enemy hearth for the reason that begin of the Israel-Hamas struggle – a significant escalation in the disaster taking maintain throughout the area.
The US Department of Defense stated that the drone assault bore the indicators of an extremist group with entry to Iranian weaponry.
President Joe Biden had earlier vowed to “respond” to the assault.
He stated on final week: “Last evening, three US service members had been killed – and lots of wounded – throughout an unmanned aerial drone assault on our forces stationed in northeast Jordan close to the Syria border.
“While we are still gathering the facts of this attack, we know it was carried out by radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq.”
The Pentagon stated the troopers died when “a one-way unmanned aerial system impacted their container housing units.”
The US has 45,000 army personnel at present stationed in the Middle East.
There are roughly 2,500 American troops in Iraq and a few 900 in Syria – a hangover from the occupation and an try to watch Islamic extremist threats.
Who are Kata’ib Hezbollah?
KATA’IB Hezbollah is a radical Shiite paramilitary group primarily based in southern Iraq.
Also generally known as the Hezbollah Brigades, the group first emerged in the early 2000s and has been blamed for violence throughout Iraq.
It has shut ties with fellow Iranian proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran’s terrorist military, the Islamist Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The group can be affiliated with the Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation Force), an alliance of Iran-backed former paramilitary teams now built-in into Iraq’s common armed forces.
With as much as 10,000 members, the group has been accountable for assaults on US targets in Iraq and Syria killing lots of of troopers.
Its chief Ahmad al-Hamidawi, was named a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in February 2020.
The Pentagon believes {that a} drone strike on a US base close to the Syria-Jordan border on January 28 that killed three personnel bore the ‘footprints’ of the group.
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