Asaib Ahl al-Haq condemns strike, accuses US and Israel of targeting Iraqi sovereignty

BAGHDAD — Asaib Ahl al-Haq condemned Thursday’s airstrike on a Popular Mobilization Forces base in the Akashat area of Anbar, accusing U.S. and Israeli forces of carrying out the attack and calling for “immediate and decisive measures” from the Iraqi government.

The movement said the strike resulted in “a large number of martyrs and wounded” and described the targeted site as “a government military site tasked with a national duty of securing and protecting the Iraqi border,” making the attack “a direct targeting of Iraq’s sovereignty and its security and military institutions.”

“We hold the Zionist-American forces fully and directly responsible for this aggression and consider it a hostile act and a crime that will not pass without a firm national position that puts an end to these repeated violations of Iraqi land and airspace,” the statement said. The group warned that continued strikes represent “a dangerous escalation and a clear attempt to impose a new military reality inside Iraqi territory and drag the country into a new war.”

A PMF source told 964media that 29 fighters were killed and 15 wounded in the Akashat strike — figures 964media has not been able to verify. Neither the United States nor Israel has claimed responsibility for any of the strikes targeting PMF positions in Iraq.

Iraq’s Joint Operations Command also condemned Thursday’s strikes on PMF positions in both Akashat and Kirkuk, describing them as a “violation of Iraq’s sovereignty.”

Asaib Ahl al-Haq, led by Qais al-Khazali, operates within the PMF and participates in politics through its Sadiqoun bloc.