US Attacks Multiple Iraqi Resistance Positions, Civil Airport

By Staff, Agencies

The United States occupation forces in Iraq carried out a string of airstrikes against multiple locations of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units [PMU], better known by the Arabic name Hashd al-Sha’abi, only a day after more than a dozen of the Iraqi fighters were martyred by airstrikes targeting an area in Syria's eastern province of Deir Ez-Zour.

The Iraqi Interior Ministry's Security Media Cell announced in a statement that “at 01:15 local time on Thursday [22:15 Wednesday] an American aerial bombardment struck headquarters of Hashd al-Sha’abi, emergency regiments as well as commandos from the 19th Division of the army.”

The airstrikes targeted positions in Jurf al-Nasr town, located about 60 kilometers southwest of the capital Baghdad, Musayyib town in the central province of Babil, the holy shrine city of Najaf as well as the ancient central city of Alexandria, the statement added.

The US military did not estimate how many people in Iraq may have been martyred in the strikes, which officials said were carried out by piloted aircraft.

US War Secretary Mark Esper, in a Pentagon statement detailing the strikes, cautioned that the United States was prepared to respond again, if needed.

“We will take any action necessary to protect our forces in Iraq and the region,” Esper said.

Separately, an Iraqi official said an airstrike had hit a civil airport under construction in the holy city of Karbala, located about 100 kilometers southwest of Baghdad.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Arabic-language al-Sumaria television network on Friday that US military aircraft fired three missiles at the airport building, which is located in near al-Haidariya district and near the border with neighboring Najaf province.

He added that the air raid killed a worker, and left great material damage at the site.