Drone Strike Kills Pro-Iran Commanders

A drone strike hit a vehicle in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, killing two commanders of a pro-Iran group, a security source and a group member said.

The attack comes as tensions soar with the United States carrying out strikes on pro-Iran groups in Iraq and Syria amid the war in the Gaza Strip.

One of those killed was a commander of the Kataeb Hezbollah group in charge of military affairs in Syria, a member of the pro-Iran Iraqi group said on condition of anonymity.

The source named the commander as Abu Baqr al-Saadi.

The security source also reported the deaths of two officials from Kataeb Hezbollah, which has taken part in the past in attacks on US forces in Iraq.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the drone strike.

But it came nearly a week after the United States struck 85 targets at seven different sites in Iraq and neighboring Syria.

Those strikes were in retaliation for an attack at the end of January on a base in Jordan that killed three US soldiers.

US and allied troops have been attacked more than 165 times in the Middle East since mid-October in a campaign waged by armed groups angered by US support for Israel in the war in Gaza.

The United States considers Kataeb Hezbollah a terrorist group, and officials in Washington had said they believed the group was behind the Jordan attack.

At the end of January the group said it was suspending its attacks against US forces.

The Hashed al-Shaabi has said that 16 of its fighters were killed in last US strikes and 36 people wounded. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said at least 23 pro-Iranian fighters were killed in Syria.

"Targeting the Hashed al-Shaabi is playing with fire," the group's leader Faleh al-Fayyad warned.