Tehran: Iran on Monday said that strikes by the United States against five targets of Iranian backed paramilitary groups in Iraq and Syria are an act of terrorism.
“US military aggression against Iraq and Iraqi forces are direct evidence of US terrorism, (Tehran) condemns it”, Sputnik quoted Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi as saying.
Pentagon on Sunday said that it had struck three locations in Iraq and two in Syria controlled by Kataib Hezbollah. The strikes were made through Air Force F-15E fighter planes.
Jonathan Hoffman, the chief Pentagon spokesman said that the targets included weapons storage facilities and command posts that were used to attack American and partner forces.
The attack was carried out in retaliation to a rocket attack on Friday in which an American contractor was killed.
Iran has long supported Kataib Hezbollah by providing weapons and other lethal aid. The group has tight ties with Quds forces, an elite unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. Washington has labelled the Guards Corps a terrorist organisation.
Sayyid Jaafar Al-Husseini, the Hezbollah military spokesman in Iraq, claimed that 24 were killed and more than 50 wounded in the strikes.
News media reports in Iraq said one man was a commander of a Kataib Hezbollah brigade.