The Asian Age

US hits pro-Iranian facilities, kills six

-

Baghdad, March 13: US air strikes targeting proIranian military factions in Iraq early Friday killed one civilian and five security personnel, the Iraqi military said in a preliminar­y toll.

Three of the dead were Iraqi soldiers and two were policemen, the military statement said, adding that 11 Iraqi fighters were also wounded, some of them critically. The civilian was a cook working at an unfinished airport outside the holy shrine city of Karbala, where another civilian was also wounded in the raids.

The airport’s media head Ghazwan Issawi confirmed the cook’s death to press and said the airport had also suffered material damage. “Five missiles hit the administra­tive building at the airport and 18 cars were destroyed,” Issawi said. “We are waiting for security forces to come and begin their investigat­ion,” he said. The volley of strikes, which began around 1 am (2200 GMT Thursday), hit five weapons storage facilities belonging to the Hashed al-Shaabi military network, according to the Pentagon.

It was in response to a rocket attack on an Iraqi base late Wednesday that killed two US military personnel and one British soldier, and which the US blamed on hardline Hashed factions.

The attack was the 22nd since October on US interests in Iraq — but by far the deadliest. US diplomatic offices have come under attack as well as the bases where the 5,200 American troops in Iraq are stationed.

The Iraqi government

● was quick to condemn the rocket attack but civilian officials had yet to comment on the retaliator­y US strikes more than 12 hours after they took place.

The military said the US

attack was a violation of Iraq’s sovereignt­y that would only lead to more instabilit­y in a country already squeezed by spiralling tensions between its two main allies, Washington and Tehran. “It leads to escalation and deteriorat­ion of the security situation in the country and exposes everyone to more risks and threats,” it said. — AFP

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from India