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The U.S. military bombed five Hezbollah Brigade facilities located in Iraq and Syria (illustration). Reuters / US Air Force / Senior Airman Matthew Bruch / Handout

The American army launched this Sunday, December 29, a series of raids against bases of a pro-Iran armed faction, killing several fighters. These operations come two days after a rocket attack that killed an American in Iraq for the first time.

The US military said on Sunday it had hit five bases in Iraq and Syria in a movement close to pro-Iranian Hezbollah. These strikes carried out " in response to repeated attacks by Kataëb Hezbollah against Iraqi bases which host the forces of the operation (anti-jihadist, note) Inherent Resolve, (...) will weaken the KH's capacities to carry out future attacks against coalition forces , "Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a statement.

US conducted defensive strikes in Iraq and Syria against 5 Kata'ib Hezbollah facilities in response to recent attacks against @OIR coalition forces.https: //t.co/yvc1nIjMav

Jonathan Rath Hoffman (@ChiefPentSpox) December 29, 2019

Of the five facilities, three were in Iraq and two were in Syria, said Jonathan Hoffman. These were weapons storage units or headquarters of the Kataëb Hezbollah (Party of God Brigades). Powerfully armed, trained and financed by Iran, these brigades operate partly within the Iraqi Hachd al-Chaabi, a coalition of paramilitaries formed to fight against the jihadists and now integrated into the Iraqi security forces, and partly independently, in particular in Syria, where they serve as auxiliaries to the forces of the Bashar al-Assad regime.

Hashd al-Chaabi has announced a death toll of 19 - combatants and commanders - and 35 wounded in the American strikes carried out in the west of the desert province of al-Anbar, which goes from Baghdad to the Syrian border .

Two months of climbing

The Pentagon spokesman accused the pro-Iranian movement of having launched more than 30 rockets on Friday against the Iraqi military base in Kirkuk (north), killing an American subcontractor and wounding four American soldiers and two Iraqi soldiers.

These strikes come after two months of an unprecedented escalation in rocket attacks against American interests in Iraq, a country in full revolt against the government and its Iranian sponsor while Washington is now, politically, absent subscribers. Since October 28, eleven attacks have thus targeted Iraqi military bases where American soldiers or diplomats are posted, and even the American embassy in the ultra-secure Green Zone of Baghdad. The first ten attacks killed and injured Iraqi military personnel and damaged property, but Friday's attack marked a turning point.

The shots targeted the K1 base in Kirkuk, an oil zone north of Baghdad that Kurdistan is disputing to the federal authorities, with unprecedented precision. " The gunfire targeted precisely the area where the Americans are, near the meeting room ," an Iraqi official told Agence France-Presse at the same time as senior commanders of the Iraqi police and the international coalition anti-Jihadists should have found their way there.

The military spokesman for the resigning Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi described the American raids on this Sunday as "a violation of Iraqi sovereignty ". While these American air raids sparked general outrage in Iraq to the highest levels of the state, four rockets were struck soon after near a base housing American soldiers near Baghdad, leaving no victims, said a security official.

Attacks on American interests or pro-Iranian bases have raised concerns over what Iraqi leaders have been warning about for months: that their two American and Iranian allies are using their soil as a battlefield.

(With AFP)