Paramilitary commander killed in Baghdad drone strike: Reports
Al Jazeera
Abu Baqir al-Saadi of the Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah group has been killed in eastern Baghdad, officials say.
A senior commander from Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed armed group in Iraq that the Pentagon linked to an attack that killed three US troops, died in a drone strike on a vehicle in eastern Baghdad, according to security sources and media reports.
One of the sources said three people were killed and that the vehicle targeted on Wednesday night was used by Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), a state security agency composed of dozens of armed groups, many of them close to Iran.
Two officials with Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq said that senior commander Abu Baqir al-Saadi was among those killed, the Associated Press news agency reported. Local outlet Sabereen News also reported al-Saadi had been killed in the blast.
Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem, reporting from Baghdad, said that “several explosions” were heard across the Iraqi capital and that security sources said three people have been killed.
Hashem said that the area where the attack took place, east of Baghdad, is “known to be a stronghold for armed factions”.
