Military vehicles of US soldiers are seen at the al-Asad air base in Anbar province, Iraq, Jan. 13, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/John Davison

Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah militia said five of its members were killed in its stronghold of Jurf al-Sakhar, south of Baghdad, in US strikes that Washington said were in response to attacks by Iran-aligned militias against its forces in the region.

The US carried out two series of strikes in Iraq on Tuesday and Wednesday, its first publicly reported responses on Iraqi territory to dozens of recent attacks and a sign of escalation in the regional conflict tied to the Israel-Hamas war.

The attacks began on Oct. 17 and have been linked by Iraqi militia groups to US support for Israel in its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza following the Palestinian terror group’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israeli communities.

The strike by fighter aircraft targeted and destroyed a Kataib Hezbollah operations center and a command and control node near Al Anbar and Jurf Al-Sakhar, a US defense official said.

An Iraqi military official said at least three members of Kataib Hezbollah had been killed and seven wounded in the overnight US strikes.

Kataib Hezbollah is part of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, a group of many mainly Shi’ite Muslim armed groups that was formed in 2014 to fight Islamic State and subsequently recognzsed as an official security agency by Iraq’s government.

Until this week, the United States had been reluctant to retaliate in Iraq because of the delicate political situation in Baghdad, where they have sought closer cooperation, including on financial issues, while seeking to limit Iran‘s influence.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani has limited control over some Iran-backed factions, whose support he needed to win power a year ago and who now form a powerful bloc in his governing coalition. Many of the factions also do not see eye-to-eye on how far to go with their attacks.