US carries out air strikes against pro-Iran militant group in Iraq, Syria

Fifteen fighters were killed by the US strikes in western Iraq, while several were wounded, according to an official from the Tehran-backed Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary force.

BS : The US has carried out air strikes against a pro-Iran militant group in Iraq, killing 15 fighters, two days after a rocket attack that killed an American civilian contractor.

A few hours after the strikes on Sunday, four rockets exploded near a base housing US troops close to Iraq's capital without wounding anyone, an Iraqi security official told AFP.

The US strikes, which also hit Syria, came after a barrage of 30 or more rockets was fired on Friday at the K1 Iraqi military base in Kirkuk, an oil-rich region north of Baghdad, killing a US civilian contractor and wounding four US service members as well as Iraqi security forces.

Fifteen fighters were killed by the US strikes in western Iraq, while several were wounded, according to an official from the Tehran-backed Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary force.

"In response to repeated Kata'ib Hizbollah (KH) attacks on Iraqi bases that host... coalition forces, US forces have conducted precision defensive strikes against five KH facilities in Iraq and Syria," a Pentagon spokesman said in a statement.

The strikes against three locations in Iraq and two in Syria "will degrade KH's ability to conduct future attacks" against coalition forces, the statement added.

"KH has a strong linkage with Iran's Quds Force and has repeatedly received lethal aid and other support from Iran that it has used to attack" coalition forces, the Pentagon said, referring to the external arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

The military spokesman for Iraq's outgoing prime minister Abel Abdel Mahdi decried "a violation of Iraqi sovereignty".

Another powerful pro-Iran faction, Assaib Ahl al-Haq -- whose leaders were recently hit with US sanctions -- called for Americans to withdraw from Iraq.

"The American military presence has become a burden for the Iraqi state and a source of threat against our forces," it said in a statement.

"It is therefore imperative for all of us to do everything to expel them by all legitimate means."