US kills commander of Iran-backed proxy group in Iraq strike

WASHINGTON — The U.S. conducted an airstrike Wednesday evening that killed the commander of an Iran-backed militia in Iraq, as the Biden administration pressed ahead with its campaign to target those responsible for the killing of three U.S. soldiers last month.

The Kataib Hezbollah commander, whose name wasn’t provided, was “responsible for directly planning and participating in attacks on U.S. forces in the region,” U.S. Central Command said in a statement. It said there appeared to be no collateral damage and no civilian casualties as a result of the strike.

Asked whether the strike had killed more than the commander cited by Central Command, a U.S. official, who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive information, said there may have been other people in the car that was hit, but he was the sole target.

Two officials with Iran-backed militias in Iraq told The Associated Press that three died, including Wissam Muhammad Sabir Al-Saadi, known as Abu Baqir Al-Saadi, the commander in charge of Kataib Hezbollah’s operations in Syria. Kataib Hezbollah later announced his death “following the bombing of the American occupation forces” in a statement.

Wednesday’s killing followed large-scale airstrikes last week against Iranian and Iran-backed forces in Iraq and Syria in retaliation for a drone attack days before that killed three U.S. soldiers and wounded dozens more at Tower 22 in Jordan. U.S. officials had described those strikes as only the start of a campaign to degrade capabilities of the group responsible for the deaths of the U.S. service members.

The exchanges show the continuing risk of a widening Middle East conflict, even as the U.S. says it’s trying to prevent that outcome. The U.S. has also targeted Iran-backed Houthi terrorists in a bid to make them stop attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and has boosted its military presence in the region in the weeks since Hamas terrorists attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7.

So far, the Biden administration has declined to conduct attacks inside Iran, though its earlier airstrikes in Syria and Iraq targeted elements of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force.

Kataib Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the deadly drone attack in Jordan, then said it was suspending military operations against U.S. troops, according to a report in Iraq’s Rudaw citing the group.

Iraq’s government said civilians were among at least 16 people killed in the initial U.S. strikes, and an Iraqi government spokesman said that “put security in Iraq and the region on the brink of an abyss.”