Washington threatens pro-Iran after two Americans die in Iraq

Text by: RFI Follow

Washington on Thursday (March 12th) threatened pro-Iranian militias with retaliatory measures after the death of two American soldiers in a rocket attack on an international coalition base in Iraq. Two Americans and a Briton were killed Wednesday in an attack on a base in Iraq, and a few hours later at least 26 Iraqi fighters were killed in a raid.

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A base near Baghdad was targeted this Wednesday, March 11, by a rocket salvo. According to the anti-jihadist coalition led by the United States, an American soldier, a British soldier and an American civilian employee were killed and 12 others injured.

The attack has not been claimed, but whenever such events occur, Washington attributes them to Iraqi Shiite militias. This nebula of paramilitary groups more or less close to Tehran gathered under the banner of Hachd al-Chaabi (popular mobilization).

In the hours following the attack on the western base, 26 of these pro-Iranian fighters were killed in a series of raids on the Iraqi-Syrian border. The anti-jihadist coalition did not claim the operation, but according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights it was the coalition commanded by the United States that struck.

This cycle of attacks and reprisals has been going on since last October, against a backdrop of hostility between Washington and Tehran. In January, an American raid near Baghdad airport claimed the lives of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and one of Iraq's main paramilitary leaders.

Around 1:30 am on January 8, I saw what looked like a meteor, a shooting star that came straight from the sky. When it hit here and it exploded, it created a mass of energy so powerful around that everything else exploded.

Report in the air base of Aïn al-Asad, where 1,500 American soldiers have been stationed since 2014, by Lucile Wassermann

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• Iran
• Iraq
• United States