Strike kills five pro-Iran militants in Iraq

KIRKUK, Iraq: An air strike in northern Iraq killed at least five pro-Iranian militants on Sunday, Iraqi security sources said, a day after Baghdad warned Washington against “attacks” on its territory.

The raid targeted a site used by an armed group affiliated with Hashed al-Shaabi, a coalition of former paramilitary forces integrated into Iraq´s regular military, a senior security official in Kirkuk province said, without saying who launched it.

A defence official in Baghdad said “a drone targeted a position of al-Nujaba group in the Dibis area” near the border of Iraq´s autonomous Kurdish region. The strike resulted in “five dead and five wounded”, the official said.

Police reported finding “debris apparently of a drone” at the bombarded site. On Saturday, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said during a phone call with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Baghdad rejected “any attack on Iraqi territory”, according to a statement from Sudani´s office.

Sudani also said the Iraqi government is committed “to ensuring the safety of the international coalition advisers present in Iraq”, referring to American and allied troops deployed as part of an anti-jihadist coalition.