Air strikes in Iraq kill three PMF fighters, two police

Air strikes in Iraq kill three PMF fighters, two policeEx-paramilitary group, set up to fight ISIL, but now integrated in Iraqi forces, blames US and Israel.Air strikes targeting Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) have killed three fighters and two Iraqi police, as the US-Israeli war on Iran continued to spill over Iraq’s eastern border.An Iraqi security source told Al Jazeera that Saturday’s double-bombing of the PMF’s headquarters near northern Iraq’s Kirkuk Airport also wounded two other fighters and six Iraqi soldiers.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3The Take: Why Iraq is the most fragile front in the US-Israel war on Iranlist 2 of 3Why Iraq is the most fragile front in the US-Israel war on Iranlist 3 of 3Iraq to summon US envoy after air strikes kill seven fighters in Anbarend of listA statement from the ex-paramilitary coalition, which is now integrated into the regular Iraqi army, blamed the United States and Israel, saying that those killed had been “subjected to a treacherous Zionist-American” attack.Separately, the Reuters news agency quoted security sources as saying that two members of the Iraqi police were killed in an air strike targeting the PMF in Mosul, about 105 miles (170km) northwest of Kirkuk.Reporting from Baghdad, Al Jazeera’s Nicolas Haque said that Iraq was turning into an “expanding battleground” in the crisis, which began on February 28 with US-Israeli strikes on Iran and now threatens to engulf the region in a protracted conflict.Since the war broke out, pro-Iran armed groups within the PMF, which was formed on the orders of Najaf-based Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in 2014 to fight ISIL (ISIS), have claimed responsibility for attacks on US interests in Iraq and beyond and have themselves been targeted.Haque said the PMF takes its orders from Baghdad, but some factions are loyal to Tehran.“That makes it very difficult for Baghdad to hold all of this together. Up until the war, the government successfully brought everybody around the table [and] was able to manage the different factions,” he said.