Six members of the Popular Mobilization Forces, an official Iraqi militia organization with ties to Iran, were killed in another U.S. drone strike in northern Baghdad on Friday, multiple officials told Newsweek. The strike comes one day after President Donald Trump approved an operation that killed an elite Iranian general.

Pentagon officials told Newsweek Friday evening the operation was targeting Imam Ali Brigades with a "high probability" the strike resulted in the death of its leader, Shubul al-Zaidi. The U.S. operation that targeted Zaidi was a part of the same strategy Trump approved Thursday morning, which killed Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds Force commander Major General Qassem Soleimani.

The militia denied that its leader had been killed in the attack, which was reported by Reuters and the Associated Press.

Reuters also reported the strikes, citing an Iraqi army source who said the airstrikes near camp Taji north of Baghdad targeted Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces—an umbrella group of Iran-backed Shi'ite militias—and had killed six people and critically wounded three. The Associated Press said five people had been killed.

Speaking Friday from his Florida resort in Mar-a-Lago, Trump said that the strike that killed Soleimani was ordered "to stop a war" and prevent attacks on American personnel.

"Soleimani was plotting imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel, but we caught him in the act and terminated him," Trump said, speaking to reporters. "We took action last night to stop a war, we did not take action to start a war."

Iranian officials have sworn revenge, and Trump's latest strike sent already-soaring tensions into a potential tailspin.

Source: Newsweek

BDST: 1247 HRS, JAN 04, 2020
SMS