“We announce the suspension of military and security operations against the occupation forces,” said Kataib Hezbollah in a statement in an apparent reference to the US troops based in Iraq and Syria.
The group added that it does not want to cause “embarrassment to the Iraqi government” without elaborating.
A drone strike on Sunday killed at least three US service members and injured tens others in an American military base in northeast Jordan, near the Syrian border. Washington has blamed groups supported by pro-Iran Kataib Hezbollah for the attack.
Kataib Hezbollah is part of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a network of shadow Iraqi militia groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
There have been at least 165 attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria since mid-October, according to the Pentagon. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq has claimed most of them, linking it to the US support for Israel in its war in Gaza.
Around 2,500 American troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria are leading an international coalition through Operation Inherent Resolve that has assisted Kurdish, Iraqi, and local Syrian forces in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS), which once held swathes of land in Iraq and Syria but was declared territorially defeated in 2019.
Kataib Hezbollah in its Tuesday statement directed its members to practise self-defence when attacked.
The United States National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby said on Tuesday that the US response to the Jordan attack will include “multiple actions.”
"It's very possible that what you'll see is a tiered approach here, not just a single action but potentially multiple actions," Kirby told reporters aboard Air Force One, reported AFP.
Last week, US struck facilities of Iran-affiliated militias in Iraq, mainly Kataib Hezbollah, in retaliation for the groups’ recent attacks targeting American personnel in the country. At least one militiaman was killed in the airstrikes.
Yehia Rasool, military spokesperson to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani, described the US’ Wednesday strikes as “unacceptable” and a violation of Iraqi sovereignty, calling on the international community to prevent the aggressions that threaten the country’s stability.
