The Pentagon has suggested a drone strike that killed three US service members has the “footprints” of Kata’ib Hezbollah.
Here we take a look at the group in more detail.
Kata’ib Hezbollah is an elite Iraqi armed faction close to Iran that was founded in the aftermath of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
It views the borders between Iraq, Syria and Lebanon as Western constructs, and US troops in Iraq as foreign occupiers.
The group quickly developed a reputation for deadly attacks against military and diplomatic targets in the 2000s, using a mixture of sniper, rocket and mortar attacks and roadside bombs.
The US designated it as a terrorist organisation in 2009, and a US drone strike killed its leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in 2020 at Baghdad’s international airport.
A shadowy group with no announced leadership structure, Kata’ib Hezbollah has thousands of fighters and an arsenal of drones, rockets and short-range ballistic missiles, Iraqi officials and members of the group say.
It is the most powerful armed faction in the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella of hardline Shia armed groups that have claimed more than 150 attacks on US forces since the Israel-Hamas war began.
At the same time, it forms several battalions in Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), a grouping of armed factions originally set up to fight Islamic State in 2014 that was subsequently recognised as an official security force.
Fighters receive state salaries and Kata’ib Hezbollah members, including some designated terrorists by the US, hold senior positions in the PMF.
While it is technically under the command of Iraq’s prime minister, the group often operates outside the chain of command and has defied and challenged government statements calling for an end to attacks on US forces.
The US has struck Kata’ib Hezbollah positions, bases and training and logistics hubs several times over the years.
On Wednesday, it struck several targets in a stronghold in Jurf Al-Sakhar, 50km south of Baghdad in retaliation for drone and missile attacks.
