Air strikes in northern Iraq on Saturday killed three members of the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) and two Iraqi police officers, according to Iraqi security sources. The attacks targeted the PMF’s headquarters near Kirkuk Airport and another site in Mosul, wounding several others. The PMF, now part of Iraq’s regular army, blamed the United States and Israel for what it called a “treacherous Zionist-American” assault. The strikes came as the US-Israeli war on Iran continued to spill over Iraq’s eastern border.

Al Jazeera reported that Iraq is becoming an expanding battleground in the conflict that began on February 28 with US-Israeli strikes on Iran. The PMF, originally formed in 2014 to fight ISIL, includes factions loyal to both Baghdad and Tehran, complicating Iraq’s position between the two powers. Baghdad is struggling to balance its ties with both the United States and Iran amid the escalating violence.

In the Kurdish region, two drones targeted a US-led coalition base near Erbil Airport, while another drone struck the home of Kurdish President Nechirvan Barzani in Duhok. Kurdish Prime Minister Masrour Barzani condemned the attack and urged Baghdad to act. French President Emmanuel Macron described the rising attacks in Iraq as a worrying development.