DEBKAfile Exclusive: Among the five targets struck on both sides of the Syrian-Iraqi border by the US air force on Monday, Dec. 29, was the Iran-supported Iraqi Kata’ib Hezbollah Shiite militia in al Qaim in Iraq and Revolutionary Guards Al Qods centers in the Abu Kamal region in Syria. Substantial dead and wounded were immediately reported, including Iranian officers.
The assault came 24 hours after 30 rockets fired at the US K-1 base near Kirkuk killed an American civilian contractor and injured four US soldiers. This was the first US direct military assault against Iranian Revolutionary Guards forces. It began shortly after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo paid a quick, unannounced visit to the US Ain al-Assad airbase with orders for the base commanders, following a decision reached in Washington that the K-1 attack by an Iranian-backed militia must not go unanswered. Pompeo flew out of Iraq shortly after his conference at Ain al-Assad airbase.
Earlier, an Iraqi interior ministry official informed Arab media of intelligence received that Al Qods chief Gen. Qassem Soleimani had ordered the Hezballah militia in Baghdad to withdraw the Iran-supplied rockets from storage and transfer them to residential areas as a means of deterring a US attack. The militia was also told to reserve those rockets exclusively for use against US forces. This disclosure strongly indicated that the Hezballah militia was in the direct sights of the impending US assault.
Content retrieved from: https://www.debka.com/us-strikes-5-iranian-al-qods-militia-bases-in-syria-and-iraq-iranian-casualties/.
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