Saudi Arabia bombed targets in Iraq linked to the country’s Shia militias that are aligned with Tehran during the US-Israeli bombing campaign against Iran, Reuters reported on Wednesday.
Sources told the outlet that Saudi fighter jets launched strikes against targets near Saudi Arabia’s border with Iran and that some attacks occurred around the time the ceasefire between the US and Iran came into effect.
The report said that the Saudi strikes targeted areas from where missile and drone attacks were launched against Saudi territory. It’s unclear if there were any casualties in the Saudi attacks.
Sources also told Reuters that rocket fire from Kuwait targeted militias in Iraq at least twice and that one attack killed several fighters and destroyed a facility used by Kataib Hezbollah, one of the main Iran-aligned militias in the country. It’s unclear if the attacks were launched by the US military or Kuwait’s own forces.
Throughout the bombing campaign in Iran, the US was launching heavy airstrikes against Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a coalition of mainly Shia militias that was formed in 2014 to fight ISIS and is officially part of Iraq’s security forces. The US strikes killed dozens of PMF fighters, and one attack killed seven Iraqi military troops.
Another group, which calls itself the Islamic Resistance in Iraq and comprises some of the same militias in the PMF, claimed many of the drone attacks against US bases and other assets in the country.
Reuters reported a day earlier that Saudi Arabia also launched direct strikes on Iran during the war and warned that the attacks would escalate if Iran didn’t stop targeting Saudi territory. The report said that Iran then reduced its attacks on Saudi Arabia, but that attacks emanating from Iraq continued.
