ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) said Tuesday that 15 of its members, including a commander, were killed in US airstrikes in Anbar early morning, as attacks continue on pro-Iran groups alongside repeated strikes on alleged US positions in Iraq and Kurdistan Region.
The PMF said its operations commander in Anbar, Saad al-Baeiji, was killed along with “a group of his heroic companions” in a US airstrike that targeted a command headquarters. It later published the names of 14 members killed in the strike.
An official in Anbar told Rudaw, speaking on condition of anonymity, that more than 20 PMF fighters were wounded in the bombing and transferred to hospitals in the province, with some in unstable condition.
A burial ceremony was planned for 11:00 am in Baghdad.
The US has carried out an intensive campaign of airstrikes against PMF factions and pro-Iran armed groups since the onset of the war between the US, Israel and Iran, killing dozens across several Iraqi provinces.
Iraq has increasingly been caught in the crossfire, with Iran-aligned armed groups stepping up drone and missile attacks on US diplomatic missions and military bases, prompting retaliatory strikes on PMF-linked positions.
In another attack last week, more than a dozen PMF members were killed in separate strikes on bases in Kirkuk and Anbar provinces. In one incident, ten fighters were killed in an airstrike on a camp in al-Qaim, while at least four others were killed and around eight injured in a drone strike on a PMF base in Kirkuk.
US President Donald Trump on Monday said that the American and Iranian negotiators had held “very good” engagement aimed at ending the ongoing war and halting US strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure. But Iranian state media dismissed the claim as “false,” saying that no talks have taken place between Tehran and Washington.