Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-aligned armed group in Iraq, has warned it will shoot down “hostile” aircraft violating Iraqi airspace as the US-led military coalition completes its withdrawal from Iraq this week, Al Jazeera reports.
Kataib Hezbollah was formed in the mid-2000s. It is part of an umbrella group of Iraqi Shia militias known as the Popular Mobilisation Forces.
“We will warn at first and then we will shoot them down,” Abu Mujahid al-Assaf, an official with Kataib Hezbollah, has said in a statement.
The coalition has a deadline of Wednesday to end its mission. Iraqi authorities say US-led forces have begun withdrawing from a base in Erbil in northern Iraq.
Al-Assaf has also demanded that Baghdad end the “air blockade” on Iran after Thursday, threatening measures that included closing border crossings. Iraq suspended commercial flights to and from Iran on Friday after the US sanctioned Iranian airlines.
