Two members of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces were killed and three others wounded when an Israeli missile struck PMF headquarters in the Jurf al-Sakhar area of Babil province on or around February 28, 2026. The targeted facilities were affiliated with the PMF Commission and reportedly linked to the Iran-aligned Kataib Hezbollah. A second airstrike hit another PMF site in the same Jurf al-Nasr area shortly after, injuring three additional people, bringing some tallies of the combined toll to two killed and five wounded.
But the Jurf al-Sakhar strikes were not isolated incidents. A separate airstrike in Diyala province on March 1 killed four PMF members of the 41st Brigade and wounded two others near the town of Miqdadiyah, roughly 90 kilometers northeast of Baghdad. Yet another strike hit PMF headquarters in Anbar province near the Syrian border. These attacks unfolded against the backdrop of a dramatic regional escalation — coordinated U.S.-Israeli military strikes targeting sites inside Iran on February 28 — and they raise urgent questions about Iraqi sovereignty, the trajectory of the broader conflict, and what accountability mechanisms, if any, exist for military operations conducted on Iraqi soil without Baghdad’s consent.
Table of Contents
- What Happened When Israeli Strikes Killed PMF Members Inside Iraqi Territory?
- The Regional Escalation That Triggered Strikes on Iraqi Soil
- Who Are the Popular Mobilization Forces and Why Were They Targeted?
- What Legal Accountability Exists for Strikes on Iraqi Sovereign Territory?
- The Risk of Escalation and Miscalculation in a Multi-Front Conflict
- Baghdad’s Political Response and the Sovereignty Question
- What Comes Next in the Iraq-Israel-U.S.-Iran Standoff
- Conclusion
- Frequently Asked Questions
What Happened When Israeli Strikes Killed PMF Members Inside Iraqi Territory?
The initial strike on the Jurf al-Sakhar headquarters appears to have been part of a broader wave of military operations timed to coincide with the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran. Jurf al-Sakhar — also referred to as Jurf al-Nasr by PMF-aligned groups who renamed the area after recapturing it from ISIS — sits south of Baghdad and has long served as a key staging ground for Iran-backed militia operations. The PMF spokesperson confirmed two fighters killed and three injured in the first strike, while iraqi state media and Kataib Hezbollah sources reported a combined toll of two killed and five wounded when factoring in the second strike on the same area. The Diyala province attack told a grimmer story.
Four members of the PMF’s 41st Brigade were killed and two wounded near Miqdadiyah, a town that has historically been a flashpoint for sectarian violence and militant activity. The PMF issued a formal statement blaming what it called “Israeli-American bombardment,” explicitly tying Washington to the strikes. A funeral procession was subsequently held in Baghdad, attended by senior PMF leadership — a public display that served both as mourning and political messaging. The Anbar province strike, targeting PMF headquarters near the Syrian border, fits a pattern of hitting logistics and command nodes along the Iraq-Syria corridor that Iran-aligned groups use to move personnel and materiel. Taken together, the strikes hit PMF assets across three Iraqi provinces in a span of roughly 48 hours — an operational tempo that suggests coordinated targeting rather than opportunistic hits.
The Regional Escalation That Triggered Strikes on Iraqi Soil
These strikes inside Iraq did not happen in a vacuum. On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched coordinated military strikes against multiple sites inside iran — a significant escalation that marked one of the most direct confrontations with Tehran in decades. Iran responded with retaliatory missile and drone attacks directed toward Israel and U.S. positions in the region, setting off a chain of military actions across multiple countries. However, the fact that Iraq became a theater of operations in this broader confrontation raises distinct legal and political problems. Iraq’s government did not authorize these strikes.
The PMF, while containing factions closely aligned with Iran, is formally integrated into Iraq’s state security apparatus — it reports to the Iraqi prime minister’s office. Striking PMF facilities is, from Baghdad’s perspective, an attack on Iraqi state institutions, regardless of the Iran ties that motivate the targeting. This distinction matters because it determines whether Iraq is a belligerent party to the conflict or a sovereign nation whose territory was violated without consent. If the precedent holds that the U.S. and Israel can strike targets inside Iraq whenever those targets have Iranian connections, then Iraqi sovereignty becomes effectively conditional — a reality that Iraqi politicians across the political spectrum have warned about for years. Pro-Iran Iraqi groups have already threatened the United States in response to the strikes, and the risk of retaliatory attacks on American personnel and assets in Iraq has increased considerably.
Who Are the Popular Mobilization Forces and Why Were They Targeted?
The Popular Mobilization Forces — known in Arabic as al-Hashd al-Shaabi — were established in 2014 as an umbrella organization of predominantly Shia militia groups mobilized to fight ISIS after the Iraqi army’s collapse in northern Iraq. The PMF played a critical role in recapturing cities like Tikrit, Fallujah, and Mosul, and was formally incorporated into Iraq’s security forces by law in 2016. Today, it comprises an estimated 100,000 to 160,000 fighters across dozens of brigades. But the PMF is not monolithic. Some brigades, like the 41st Brigade hit in Diyala, operate under close coordination with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Quds Force.
Kataib Hezbollah, whose facilities were reportedly linked to the Jurf al-Sakhar strike, is one of the most powerful Iran-aligned factions within the PMF and has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States since 2009. Other PMF components, including brigades affiliated with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, maintain greater independence from Tehran. This internal diversity is precisely what makes blanket strikes against PMF infrastructure so politically complicated. When Israel or the United States hits a Kataib Hezbollah-linked facility, it is simultaneously striking an entity that Baghdad considers part of its own armed forces. The funeral procession in Baghdad for the Diyala victims — attended by senior PMF leadership — was a deliberate signal that these were not rogue militants but members of a state institution who died on duty.
What Legal Accountability Exists for Strikes on Iraqi Sovereign Territory?
From a legal standpoint, the strikes raise questions that existing international frameworks struggle to answer cleanly. Under international law, the use of force on another state’s territory without its consent generally violates sovereignty, unless justified by self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter or authorized by the UN Security Council. Neither condition clearly applies here. Israel could argue it was acting in self-defense against Iranian proxies preparing attacks, but that argument requires demonstrating an imminent threat — a standard that has been stretched thin in the post-9/11 era. The United States faces its own legal exposure. If, as the PMF alleges, the strikes were a joint “Israeli-American bombardment,” then the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) that has governed U.S. military operations in Iraq since 2002 could come under renewed scrutiny.
Congress has debated repealing the 2002 Iraq AUMF for years, and strikes on Iraqi state-affiliated forces significantly strain any argument that the authorization was intended for this purpose. The tradeoff is clear: pursuing Iran-linked targets inside Iraq may degrade proxy capabilities in the short term, but it undermines the legal and diplomatic foundations that sustain the broader U.S. presence in the region. Practically speaking, accountability will likely come through political rather than legal channels. Iraq’s parliament has previously voted to expel U.S. forces — in January 2020 after the Qasem Soleimani assassination — though that resolution was never fully implemented. A fresh wave of strikes on Iraqi soil could reinvigorate those efforts and hand Iran-aligned political blocs a powerful argument for ending the U.S. military presence entirely.
The Risk of Escalation and Miscalculation in a Multi-Front Conflict
The greatest danger in the current situation is not any single strike but the compounding effect of military operations across multiple countries simultaneously. When the U.S. and Israel are striking targets in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and potentially elsewhere in the same operational window, the risk of miscalculation rises exponentially. A strike that hits the wrong target, kills civilians, or destroys critical infrastructure could trigger responses that no party intended or can control. Pro-Iran Iraqi groups have already issued threats against the United States following the strikes. These are not idle warnings — groups like Kataib Hezbollah and Asaib Ahl al-Haq have demonstrated the capability and willingness to attack U.S.
bases, diplomatic facilities, and personnel in Iraq using rockets, drones, and roadside bombs. The period following the Soleimani killing in 2020 saw a sustained campaign of such attacks, and there is no reason to believe the current escalation will produce restraint. A further limitation of the current approach is that degrading PMF infrastructure does not eliminate the underlying political and military dynamics that sustain these groups. The PMF’s power derives from its integration into Iraqi state institutions, its popularity among significant segments of the Shia population, and Iran’s sustained investment in training, funding, and equipping its allied factions. Destroying a headquarters building in Jurf al-Sakhar or killing four fighters in Diyala does not alter these structural realities. It may, in fact, reinforce them by creating martyrs and validating the narrative that external powers are attacking Iraq’s defenders.
Baghdad’s Political Response and the Sovereignty Question
Iraq’s government finds itself in an impossible position. Publicly condemning the strikes risks alienating Washington at a moment when Iraq still depends on U.S. military and economic support.
Staying silent risks appearing to accept the violation of Iraqi sovereignty, which would be politically fatal domestically — particularly for any government that relies on Shia political blocs aligned with the PMF. The funeral procession held in Baghdad for the Diyala victims was attended by senior PMF leadership and served as a pressure mechanism on the Iraqi government to respond decisively. In previous escalations, Baghdad has walked a fine line — issuing condemnations while quietly continuing security cooperation with the United States. Whether that balancing act can survive the current scale of strikes, coming amid a direct U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran itself, is an open question.
What Comes Next in the Iraq-Israel-U.S.-Iran Standoff
The trajectory from here depends on whether the parties involved treat the current strikes as a discrete episode tied to the Iran confrontation or as a new baseline for military operations inside Iraq. If the strikes stop as tensions with Iran de-escalate, Baghdad may be able to absorb the political damage.
If they continue or expand, Iraq could become a sustained front in a broader regional war — a scenario that would have devastating consequences for Iraqi civilians and for the fragile stability the country has built since the defeat of ISIS. For American policymakers and citizens watching these developments, the core question is one of accountability: who authorized strikes on a sovereign nation’s state-affiliated forces, under what legal authority, and with what oversight from Congress? These are not abstract concerns. They determine whether the United States is acting within the bounds of law and democratic governance or whether military operations in the Middle East have once again outpaced the institutions meant to constrain them.
Conclusion
The killing of two PMF members in Jurf al-Sakhar, four more in Diyala, and the wounding of multiple others across at least three Iraqi provinces represents a significant expansion of military operations on Iraqi soil. These strikes, occurring in the context of coordinated U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran, have placed Iraq squarely in the middle of a regional confrontation it did not choose and cannot easily escape.
The PMF’s dual identity — as both an Iran-aligned proxy network and a legally constituted arm of the Iraqi state — ensures that every strike will be simultaneously framed as counterterrorism by its perpetrators and as an assault on sovereignty by Baghdad. The coming weeks will reveal whether these strikes represent a temporary spillover from the Iran confrontation or a lasting shift in how the United States and Israel treat Iraqi territory. For those concerned with government accountability, the key demands remain consistent: transparency about the legal authority for these operations, honest accounting of civilian and combatant casualties, and meaningful congressional oversight of military actions that risk drawing the United States deeper into yet another open-ended Middle Eastern conflict.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF)?
The PMF, or al-Hashd al-Shaabi, is an umbrella organization of predominantly Shia militia groups established in 2014 to fight ISIS in Iraq. It was formally incorporated into Iraq’s state security forces by law in 2016 and reports to the Iraqi prime minister’s office, though several of its component brigades maintain close ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
How many PMF members were killed and wounded in the February-March 2026 strikes?
Across the reported strikes, at least six PMF members were killed — two in Jurf al-Sakhar (Babil province) and four from the 41st Brigade near Miqdadiyah (Diyala province). At least five to seven were wounded across the Babil and Diyala strikes combined, depending on the source.
Did the Iraqi government authorize the strikes?
No. Iraq did not authorize the strikes on its territory. The PMF issued a statement blaming “Israeli-American bombardment,” and the strikes have been widely characterized as violations of Iraqi sovereignty by Iraqi political figures and media.
What is Kataib Hezbollah’s role in this?
Kataib Hezbollah is one of the most powerful Iran-aligned factions within the PMF. The facilities struck in Jurf al-Sakhar were reportedly linked to the group, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States since 2009. It has a history of attacking U.S. forces and interests in Iraq.
What legal authority covers U.S. involvement in strikes inside Iraq?
The primary legal framework has been the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) for Iraq, though its applicability to strikes on Iraqi state-affiliated forces is heavily contested. Congress has debated repealing the 2002 AUMF, and strikes like these intensify questions about whether existing authorizations cover the current scope of operations.