ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Explosions were heard in Baghdad early Saturday after airstrikes targeted locations in the Iraqi capital, with security sources saying a member of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) was killed.
Early Saturday, the sound of two powerful explosions was heard in Baghdad. According to Rudaw’s information, an airstrike targeted a house in the city that was said to be used as a headquarters of a PMF leader. Preliminary information indicated deaths and injuries.
A senior Iraqi security official told Rudaw on condition of anonymity that “The Popular Mobilization Forces have surrounded the bombed sites and are not giving us information either.”
“At 02:15 am (2315 GMT Friday), a missile struck a house that was being used by Kataeb Hezbollah,” AFP cited a security source as saying, adding that “a key figure was martyred,” and two members of the group were wounded.
Two hours later, an airstrike struck a vehicle in eastern Baghdad, killing “a member of the Hashed al-Shaabi [PMF],” according to another source cited by AFP.
A PMF official told AFP that the member killed belonged to Iraq’s pro-Iran Kataib Hezbollah, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States.
So far, neither the PMF nor other Iraqi authorities have revealed the identities of those killed in the attack. However, some officials and lawmakers affiliated with the PMF have posted verses from the Holy Quran on social media referring to death.
The PMF is an umbrella organization of Iraqi armed groups that includes factions aligned with the Iran-led Axis of Resistance.
More than two dozen fighters from the PMF were killed in suspected US strikes on their bases in Iraq’s western Anbar province and central Kirkuk province on Thursday.
Kataib Hezbollah in late February called on its fighters to prepare for what it described as a potential “war attrition that may be long-term, exceeding the estimates of the US administration.”
A spokesperson for Kataib Hezbollah, Abu Ali al-Askari, said last week that the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during Israeli strikes at the onset of the war had made undermining the security of US assets and expelling them from the region a top priority for Iran-aligned Iraqi armed groups.
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