Abu Baqir al-Saadi of the Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah group was killed in eastern Baghdad, authorities say.
A top commander of Kataib Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed armed group in Iraq that the Pentagon linked to an attack that killed three American soldiers, was killed in a drone strike on a vehicle in eastern Baghdad, according to security sources and reports. of the media.
One of the sources said that three people were killed and that the vehicle attacked on Wednesday night was used by Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a state security agency made up of dozens of armed groups, many of them close to Iran.
Two officials from Iranian-backed armed groups in Iraq said commander Abu Baqir al-Saadi was among the dead, the Associated Press news agency reported. Local outlet Sabereen News also reported that al-Saadi had died in the explosion.
Al Jazeera's Ali Hashem, reporting from Baghdad, said “several explosions” were heard throughout the Iraqi capital and security sources said three people had been killed.
Hashem said the area where the attack took place, east of Baghdad, is “known to be a stronghold of armed factions.”
Kataib Hezbollah fighters and commanders are part of the PMF, a coalition of primarily pro-Iran paramilitaries now integrated into Iraq's regular security forces.
Three U.S. soldiers were killed in January in a drone strike near the Jordan-Syria border that the Pentagon said bore the “footprints” of Kataib Hezbollah. The group then announced it would suspend military operations against US troops in the region.
Iraq and Syria have seen almost daily attacks between Iranian-backed armed groups and US forces stationed in the region since the Israeli assault on Gaza began in October.
There was no immediate comment from US officials on the explosion.
The United States attacked Iranian-backed Iraqi groups in Iraq and Syria last weekend in what it said was the beginning of its response to the killing of three American soldiers in a drone strike.
In January, a US drone strike killed a senior militia commander in central Baghdad, an attack that Washington said came in response to drone and rocket attacks on its forces.
On Wednesday, Iraqi special forces were on high alert in Baghdad and more units were deployed inside the Green Zone that houses international diplomatic missions, including the US embassy, a security source said.
