Two dead in US strikes against Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq

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.

According to Iraqi sources, the U.S. strikes targeted Ketaeb Hezbollah, a militant faction affiliated with the former Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitaries, in the Jurf al-Sakhr area south of the capital Baghdad, as well as in the Al-Qaim region on the border with Syria.

Two people were killed and two wounded in the bombardments in the al-Qaim sector, according to an official at the Iraqi Interior Ministry and a former member of the Hashed al-Shaabi, whose fighters have been integrated into the regular army.

The U.S. strikes come against an already explosive regional backdrop, fuelled by the war in Gaza between Washington's ally Israel and the Iranian-backed Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.

In a statement, Austin confirmed "necessary and proportionate strikes" in Iraq against "three facilities used by the Iranian-backed Ketaeb Hezbollah militia group and other Iran-affiliated groups in Iraq".

"These precision strikes are in direct response to a series of escalatory attacks against U.S. and coalition personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-sponsored militias," he said, referring to the U.S.-led international coalition against the ISIL terror group.

The U.S. Central Command said the strikes targeted Ketaeb Hezbollah "headquarters, storage, and training locations for rocket, missile, and one-way attack UAV (drone) capabilities".

U.S. and allied...