{"id":99879,"date":"2024-02-08T00:43:31","date_gmt":"2024-02-08T06:43:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=99879"},"modified":"2024-02-08T00:43:31","modified_gmt":"2024-02-08T06:43:31","slug":"99879","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=99879","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Drone strike in Baghdad kills high-ranking militia commander<\/a><\/p>\n

BAGHDAD \u2014 A U.S. drone strike blew up a car in the Iraqi capital Wednesday night, killing a high-ranking commander of the powerful Kataib Hezbollah militia who is responsible for \u201cdirectly planning and participating in attacks\u201d on American troops in the region, the U.S. military said.<\/p>\n

The strike came on a main thoroughfare in the Mashtal neighborhood in eastern Baghdad, attracting a crowd as emergency teams picked through the wreckage. It came amid roiling tensions in the region, and is likely to further anger Iraqi government leaders, who U.S. officials said were not notified before the strike.<\/p>\n

Security forces closed off the heavily guarded Green Zone, where a number of diplomatic compounds are located, amid calls for protesters to storm the U.S. Embassy.<\/p>\n

There were conflicting reports on the number killed, with U.S. officials saying the initial assessment was one, and saying there were no civilians hurt or killed. But two officials with Iran-backed militias in Iraq said that three died, including Wissam Muhammad Sabir Al-Saadi, known as Abu Baqir Al-Saadi, the commander in charge of Kataib Hezbollah\u2019s operations in Syria. Kataib Hezbollah announced Abu Baqir\u2019s death \u201cfollowing the bombing of the American occupation forces\u201d in a statement.<\/p>\n

Those officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren\u2019t authorized to speak to journalists.<\/p>\n

In a statement, U.S. Central Command said \u201cthere are no indications of collateral damage or civilian casualties at this time.\u201d It added that the U.S. \u201cwill not hesitate to hold responsible all those who threaten our forces\u2019 safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

The strike came days after the U.S. military launched an air assault on dozens of sites in Iraq and Syria used by Iranian-backed militias and the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard in retaliation for a drone strike that killed three U.S. troops in Jordan in late January.<\/p>\n

The U.S. has blamed the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a broad coalition of Iran-backed militias, for the attack in Jordan, and officials have said they suspect Kataib Hezbollah in particular of leading it.<\/p>\n

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq has regularly claimed strikes on bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria against the backdrop of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, saying that they are in retaliation for Washington\u2019s support of Israel in its war in Gaza that has killed 27,707 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory.<\/p>\n

Kataib Hezbollah had said in a statement that it was suspending attacks on American troops to avoid \u201cembarrassing the Iraqi government\u201d after the strike in Jordan, but others have vowed to continue fighting.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed a drone attack on a base housing U.S. troops in eastern Syria killed six fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led group allied with the United States.<\/p>\n

The latest surge in the regional conflict came shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday rejected terms proposed by Hamas for a hostage-release agreement that would lead to a permanent cease-fire, vowing to continue the war until \u201cabsolute victory.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also on Wednesday, the media office of the Houthi rebels in Yemen reported two airstrikes in the Ras Issa area in Salif district in Hodeida province.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Drone strike in Baghdad kills high-ranking militia commander BAGHDAD \u2014 A U.S. drone strike blew up a car in the Iraqi capital Wednesday night, killing a high-ranking commander of the powerful Kataib Hezbollah militia who is responsible for \u201cdirectly planning and participating in attacks\u201d on American troops in the region, the U.S. military said. The … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-moslems-jihadis","category-slugs-for-thugs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=99879"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99880,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99879\/revisions\/99880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=99879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=99879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=99879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}