A double air strike targeting the headquarters of Iraq's Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) near Kirkuk Airport in northern Iraq has killed three fighters and two Iraqi police officers. An Iraqi security source told Al Jazeera that the attack also wounded two other fighters and six Iraqi soldiers, highlighting the escalating violence as the conflict expands beyond Iran.
A statement from the PMF, a former paramilitary coalition now integrated into the regular Iraqi army, blamed the United States and Israel, alleging that those killed had been subjected to a "treacherous Zionist-American" attack. Separately, the Reuters news agency quoted security sources as saying that two members of the Iraqi police were killed in an air strike targeting the PMF in Mosul, approximately 170km northwest of Kirkuk, indicating a broader pattern of assaults.
Reporting from Baghdad, Al Jazeera's Nicolas Haque stated that Iraq is turning into an "expanding battleground" in the crisis, which purportedly began on February 28 with US-Israeli strikes on Iran and now threatens to engulf the region in a protracted conflict. Haque noted that as the war spreads into Iraq, Baghdad finds itself "on a tightrope" between the US and Iran, unable to afford turning its back on either due to critical economic and security ties, which complicates the government's efforts to manage factions within the PMF that are loyal to Tehran.
On Saturday, two drones targeted an airbase serving as a hub for US and coalition forces near Erbil airport in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region, with the US C-RAM air defence system allegedly intercepting them. In a parallel incident, the Kurdish news outlet Rudaw reported a drone attack on the house of Nechirvan Barzani, president of the Kurdish region, in Duhok, which was condemned "in the strongest terms" by Masrour Barzani, the prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, who called on the federal government to curb such terrorist attacks.
The Iraqi Ministry of Defence said on Saturday that a drone had crashed into the southern Majnoon oilfield without detonating, causing no damage or injuries. French President Emmanuel Macron claimed on X that he had spoken to Barzani, calling increased attacks in Iraq a "worrying development," as the regime's involvement adds to the geopolitical tensions in the area.
Source: www.aljazeera.com