US drone strike in Baghdad kills militia leader backed by Iran

A top leader of a group supported by Iran was killed by a US drone attack in Baghdad.

A high-ranking member of Kataib Hezbollah and two of his bodyguards were attacked while driving in the eastern part of Baghdad, Iraq. All of them passed away.

The Pentagon said the leader was in charge of planning attacks on US forces in the area.

The US believes that the militia was involved in a drone attack in Jordan that killed three US troops last month.

After the attack, Kataib Hezbollah said it was stopping attacks on American troops to avoid causing trouble for the Iraqi government.

On Wednesday night, there was a drone attack in the Mashtal neighborhood of Baghdad. It caused many loud explosions.

A car was hit directly on a busy street and it caught on fire.

One of the people hurt has been named as Abu Baqir al-Saadi, a leader in Kataib Hezbollah.

The US Central Command (Centcom) said that at 9:30 pm local time (6:30 pm GMT), they killed the person who planned and took part in attacking US forces in the region.

“At this time, the Centcom statement says there is no evidence of harm to people or damage to buildings. ”

When the media team arrived, they saw a lot of people protesting and shouting, “America is the worst. ”

There were a lot of police and Swat teams from Iraq’s interior ministry.

The BBC team wanted to get close to the burned car, but the people watching told them to go away because they didn’t want journalists there.

“You are not from here,” a man yelled, adding “and people like you are causing this problem”.

The attack happened a few days after the US did 85 strikes in Iraq-Syria border area. This was in response to a drone attack on American soldiers in Jordan on 28th January which resulted in deaths.

President Joe Biden said the attacks last Friday are just the start of how the US will react.

The attack by the drone in the capital of Iraq will be seen as a big increase in violence.

But it was bound to happen that the American plan would focus on attacking not just the buildings and facilities used by the groups, but also their top bosses.

Soon after the attack on Wednesday, groups in the country wanted to get back at the US.

Harakat al Nujaba, a group accused of attacking American soldiers, said they will fight back. They also warned that they will punish those responsible for the attacks.

On January 4th, the US attacked in Baghdad and killed an important leader of Harakat al Nujaba.

American soldiers have been attacked more than 165 times with rockets and drones since the war between Israel and Gaza started on October 7th.

According to the Pentagon, there are about 2,500 soldiers in Iraq and 900 in Syria from the US. They are there to fight against the Islamic State terror group.

The US military has started to attack the Houthi group in Yemen because they attacked commercial ships in the Red Sea.