The airstrikes came hours after the pro-Iranian armed group Kataib Hezbollah announced a conditional suspension of attacks on the US embassy.
Published on 19 March 2026
The paramilitary group says airstrikes have killed two Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) fighters in northern Iraq, a front in the war spreading across the Middle East.
Two attacks early Thursday targeted PMF positions in the Nineveh region, where the city of Mosul is located, and a military air base in Salah al-Din province, according to statements by the PMF, a predominantly Shia group that is part of Iraq’s security apparatus and includes several groups linked to Iran.
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The PMF blamed Israel and the United States for the attack. Iraq has also joined the US-Israel war over Iran in its third week.
The PMF was formed in 2014 as a volunteer force supporting Iraqi security forces in the fight against ISIL (ISIS).
The attacks have targeted Iran-backed groups, which in turn claim almost daily attacks on US interests in Iraq and throughout the region.
Elsewhere, a fire broke out at a naval base in southern Iraq overnight after being hit by a drone. An Iraqi security source told Al Jazeera that a drone crashed into a water treatment station at the Umm Qasr naval base near the border with Kuwait.
Footage from the scene circulated on social media and verified by Al Jazeera showed flames and smoke rising from the site.
Attacks on the American Embassy will be stopped
Hours before the attack on PMF fighters, the pro-Iranian armed group Kata’ib Hezbollah said that its secretary-general had “issued orders to suspend operations targeting the US embassy in Baghdad for a period of five days”.
Iraq’s Kata’ib Hezbollah, designated as a “terrorist organization” by Washington, listed several conditions of the suspension, including Israel ceasing bombing of Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Kata’ib Hezbollah also demanded “a commitment not to bomb residential areas in Baghdad and other provinces”.
Whenever “the enemy violates the ceasefire”, “the response will be immediate”, the group said, warning of more attacks after a period of five days.
In recent times, the US Embassy has been targeted several times by drone and rocket attacks. Air defense has intercepted most of the projectiles.
The embassy is in the Green Zone, a heavily fortified district in central Baghdad that houses Iraqi government institutions and embassies.
A US diplomatic and logistics center at Baghdad International Airport, which houses military personnel, has also been regularly targeted.
