• Separate incident sees drone crash near Erbil airport, sparking fire without casualties

ISTANBUL

One fighter from Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) was killed and three others were injured in an airstrike carried out by unidentified aircraft in northern Iraq, the country’s Iraqi Joint Operations Command said Saturday.

The command’s Security Media Cell said in a statement that the headquarters of the PMF’s 40th Brigade was targeted in an airstrike at 18.10 local time, while the 33rd Regiment of the PMF was also struck in Nineveh Governorate.

The attacks resulted in the killing of one PMF fighter and the injury of three others, in addition to preliminary reports of material damage, the statement said.

The strikes on the PMF came amid operations by Iraqi factions under the so-called “Islamic resistance” against US bases, coinciding with the broader Israeli-US offensive against Iran.

The PMF, also known as the Hashd al-Shaabi, was originally formed on June 14, 2014, as a volunteer force supporting Iraqi security forces in the fight against the ISIS (Daesh) terror group. It was formally incorporated into Iraq’s armed forces by a government decree in July 2016.

The Security Media Cell said in a separate statement that an unidentified drone was intercepted near Erbil International Airport in northern Iraq at 07.45 pm local time.

According to the statement, the drone crashed in the Kazna area onto a warehouse storing plastic materials, triggering a fire.

Civil defense teams managed to fully extinguish the blaze, and no casualties were reported, with damage limited to material losses.

Regional tensions escalated last week after the US and Israel launched an attack on Iran, killing several top Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Tehran retaliated with a series of drone and missile attacks that targeted Israel, US assets in Iraq, Jordan and several Gulf countries.