A US airstrike in Baghdad on Thursday killed the commander of an Iranian-backed Shia militia that Washington blames for attacks on American forces in the region, according to US officials.

One official said that a leader of Harakat al-Nujaba, later named by the Pentagon as Mushtaq Jawad Kazim al-Jawari, was killed in his car as he was about to enter the garage at his group’s Baghdad headquarters. News footage from Baghdad showed damage to the building. Harakat al-Nujaba, which has been active in Syria and Iraq, is loyal to Tehran but also forms part of Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), a collection of largely autonomous militias.

 

The Pentagon said that Jawari, also known as Abu Taqwa, had been involved in planning and carrying out attacks on American forces. The Nujaba group had also claimed responsibility for a drone strike on an Israeli school in the southern coastal city of Eilat.

Maj Gen Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesperson, said that one other Harakat al-Nujaba member was killed and added: “No civilians were harmed. No infrastructure or facilities were struck.”

The airstrike prompted outrage from the Iraqi government, who called it a “dangerous escalation and aggression”.

The PMF issued a statement describing the airstrike as “brutal American aggression”. Two people were killed in the attack and five were injured, according to militia officials.

The killing of an Iranian proxy commander came on the day the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, was due to leave on a new tour of the Middle East, at a time when it is in ever-rising danger of sliding into a regional conflict. In the days before the Baghdad strike, more than 80 Iranians were killed in an apparent suicide attack claimed by the Islamic State, Israel killed a Hamas leader with a missile strike in the Beirut suburbs, and the US issued a joint threat with 11 of its allies to attack positions held by the Iranian-backed Houthi forces in Yemen if there were further Houthi attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea.

 

FULL STORY

 

Good job. And if Biden was part of the decision making process and gave his approval, good job to him as well. The more that Iran learns that FAFO has real implications, the better. 

The 80 killed in Iran, a suicide bombing by ISIS. If Iran were not so screwed up, we could work together to eliminate ISIS.