An American military airstrike on Wednesday killed a top commander of an Iran-backed militia umbrella group that the Biden administration says was responsible for recent attacks on U.S. troops, in the latest retaliatory operation against those behind the drone strike that killed three U.S. service members in Jordan late last month.
In a statement, the Pentagon’s Central Command did not identify the individual in question but said he was a commander of the group Kata’ib Hezbollah, and had a hand in at least some of the recent missile and drone assaults on American bases in the region.
U.S. forces “conducted a unilateral strike in Iraq in response to the attacks on U.S. service members, killing a Kata’ib Hezbollah commander responsible for directly planning and participating in attacks on U.S. forces in the region,” CENTCOM said.
“There are no indications of collateral damage or civilian casualties at this time,” the statement said. “The United States will continue to take necessary action to protect our people. We will not hesitate to hold responsible all those who threaten our forces’ safety.”
Officials told the Associated Press that a U.S. drone struck a car traveling through Baghdad on Wednesday night, killing three members of Kata’ib Hezbollah, including the commander. The strike came on a main thoroughfare in the Mashtal neighborhood in eastern Baghdad, the AP reported.
Officials with Iran-backed militias in Iraq identified one of the dead as Wissam Mohammed “Abu Bakr” al-Saadi, the commander of Kata’ib Hezbollah’s operations in Syria, according to media reports.
Wednesday’s strike makes good on the Biden administration’s promise that it would continue hitting back against Kata’ib Hezbollah and other Iraqi Shiite militias that have direct links to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Last Friday, U.S. fighter jets and drones hit dozens of targets, including command and control headquarters, ammunition storage, intelligence centers, and other facilities used by the Quds Force, a wing of the IRGC, and the militias affiliated with it.
CENTCOM said the Friday missions struck more than 85 targets in a well-coordinated operation. More than 125 precision munitions were used, Pentagon officials said, with some long-range bombers flown from the U.S. to the Middle East to take part in the long-awaited American counterattack.
Those strikes came less than a week after a drone attack killed three American service members at a military base in Jordan. The Pentagon blamed that attack on the network of Iran-backed militias operating across the region.
Over the past few months, those groups have launched more than 150 attacks against U.S. troops in the Middle East. Those attacks have grown more frequent and more deadly since Oct. 7, when the Palestinian militant group Hamas — also financially and logistically backed by Iran — launched its own massive terrorist attack on Israel.
Successive U.S. administrations have now proven themselves willing to strike targets in Iraq’s capital when necessary. In January 2020, then-President Donald Trump ordered a strike on Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s IRGC, whom the administration painted as the key conduit between Tehran and the Shiite militias attacking U.S. troops. He was killed at Baghdad’s international airport.
Wednesday’s attack surely will spark more discord between the U.S. and the Iraqi government, which condemned last week’s strikes against Iran-backed militias on its soil and has begun talks about the possible removal of more than 2,000 American troops based in the country.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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