(30 Dec 2019) FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 4246806 Hundreds of protesters gathered in Baghdad to condemn the United States airstrikes on Iraqi Hezbollah bases in Iraq, and to show support for the paramilitary Popular Mobilization Forces, also known as Hashd al Shaabi.
The protesters burned the US and Israeli flags during the protest and were chanting in Arabic "Shame on you, Hashd is standing tall."
The protesters marched through the streets of Baghdad and gathered in Tahrir Square in the center of Baghdad.
The U.S. carried out military strikes in Iraq and Syria targeting a militia blamed for an attack that killed an American contractor, a Defense Department spokesman said Sunday.
U.S. forces conducted "precision defensive strikes" against five sites of Kataeb Hezbollah, or Hezbollah Brigades, an Iran-backed Iraqi militia, spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a statement.
The U.S. blames the militia for a rocket barrage Friday that killed a U.S. defense contractor at a military compound near Kirkuk, in northern Iraq. Officials said attackers fired as many as 30 rockets in Friday's assault.
Kataib Hezbollah has denied responsibility for the attack that targeted American forces at K-1 base in Kirkuk.
Hezbollah spokesperson Mohammed Mohy said that the US has used that false pretense to attack resistance groups that are defending Iraq and holding a strategic area on the border with Syria.
Mohammed Mohy said that the least demand of the Iraqi people now must be the expulsion of American forces from Iraq and not only having condemnation responses.
Hezbollah spokes person has warned the United States that the Iraqi people have the right to use all types of resistance against them, because their presence in the country is illegal.
Mohy, Hezbollah spoke to AP at Hezbollah's office in Baghdad said that the Americans wanted to remove Hashd and other resistance groups from the strategic road that connects between Iraq and Syria, towards Lebanon.
Kataeb Hezbollah is led by Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, one of Iraq's most powerful men.
He once battled U.S. troops and is now the deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Forces.
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