The US military struck two operations centers belonging to Iraqi Hezbollah early Wednesday in response to what it said were attacks on US bases, including the Ain al-Asad Air Base, that have escalated alongside Israel's operations against Hamas in Gaza. "We can confirm an attack last night by Iran-backed militias using a close-range ballistic missile against US and coalition forces at Al-Asad Airbase, which resulted in eight injuries and some minor damage to infrastructure," Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Pat Ryder said Wednesday, per the Times of Israel. US fighter jets struck Kataib Hezbollah operations center and a Kataib Hezbollah Command and Control node near Al Anbar and Jurf al Saqr, south of Baghdad, officials tell the AP.
The "discrete, precision strikes ... were in direct response to the attacks against US and Coalition forces by Iran and Iran-backed groups," US Central Command wrote on X. "Five members of Kataeb Hezbollah were killed by aerial bombing in the Jurf al-Sakhar sector," an official in the Iraqi security services told AFP via the Times. The US strike followed another immediate, unplanned retaliatory strike by an AC-130 gunship that was in the air when the Iranian-backed militants fired two short-range ballistic missiles at Al-Asad Air Base in Iraq late Monday evening, per the AP. The gunship was able to locate the origin of the missiles, and fired on several militants who had fled in a vehicle. "Multiple Iranian-backed militiamen in Iraq" were killed in that earlier strike, per the Times.
The officials who spoke to the AP said the US is trying to communicate that it does not seek wider conflict but that the Iran-backed attacks against American forces must stop, and that the US will take further action if needed. To date, US bases in Iraq and Syria have been struck 66 times (32 times in Iraq and 34 times in Syria) since Oct. 17, the day a blast at a hospital in Gaza killed hundreds. (More Iraq stories.)
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