Popular Mobilization Forces

An American air strike in the Iraqi capital killed a senior commander from a pro-Iran armed group who was involved in attacks on Washington's troops in the region, the U.S. military has said.

U.S. forces targeted sites used by Iran-backed militants in Iraq early Wednesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced, carrying out strikes that Iraqi sources said left two people dead.

The strikes came just days after U.S. troops in western Iraq were targeted with ballistic missiles and rockets in an attack the Pentagon blamed on militants supported by Tehran.

The U.S. military carried out strikes on three sites used by Iran-backed forces in Iraq on Monday after an attack wounded three American personnel earlier in the day, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said.

The air strike is a response to the missile attack on US targets in Iraq and was of limited dimensions, it is possible that there would be no escalation, Reuters reports. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announced that 17 pro-Iranian fighters were killed in those attacks.

Six Iraqi security personnel and three civilians were killed in an ambush Nov. 21 carried out by ISIL north of Baghdad, police and a local official said.    

A police source said a roadside bomb hit a car and jihadists opened fire on a rescue team of policemen and state-aligned paramilitary forces when they arrived at the scene, about 200 kilometers (120 miles) from the capital.    

The United States said on June 11 it would reduce troops in Iraq in the coming months as friction between the two countries eased under a new U.S.-friendly premier in Baghdad.

The United States also promised support to prop up the struggling Iraqi economy as the two nations held their first strategic dialogue in more than a decade.

A military base in Iraq with US troops was attacked once again. There were no casualties, world agencies reported, citing a communique by Iraqi armed forces.

Today, Katyusha rockets targeted the Taji military camp, located north of Baghdad.

The incidents come amid heightened tensions between the US and Iran .

At least eight fighters of the pro-Iranian paramilitary Hashd al-Shaabi have been killed in eastern Syria, the Observatory said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the planes targeted positions belonging to pro-Iranian militias in the Boukamal area, near the border with Iraq.

The Middle East has once again become the focus of the whole world since Jan. 3, 2020.

Two rockets hit near the U.S. embassy in Iraq's capital on Jan. 5, witnesses told AFP, hours after the ambassador was summoned over a U.S. strike that killed top Iraqi and Iranian commanders.     

Jan. 5's attack was the second night in a row that the Green Zone was hit and the 14th time over the last two months that U.S. installations have been targeted.