Four Iran-backed militia fighters killed in Baghdad drone strike
A drone strike killed four members of an Iran-aligned Iraqi militia and wounded six in Baghdad on Thursday, police and security sources said, in an attack blamed by Iraqi authorities on the US-led international coalition.
Police sources and eyewitnesses said the drone had fired at least two rockets at a building in eastern Baghdad used by the Iraqi militia group al-Nujaba’a.
“The Iraqi armed forces hold the international coalition forces responsible for this unjustified attack on an Iraqi security entity”, said a statement which described the militia group as an Iraqi force operating with the authorisation of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani.
The US has 900 troops deployed in Syria and 2,500 in Iraq to prevent a resurgence of Islamic State militants.
Al-Sudani has limited control over some Iran-backed factions, whose support he needed to win power a year ago and who now form a powerful bloc in his governing coalition.
Police and militia sources said Thursday’s rockets had targeted a vehicle inside the Nujaba’a headquarters and that the dead included a local group commander and one of his aides. Health sources confirmed the death toll.
