Iraq Summons U.S. Diplomat, Files UN Complaint After Strikes Kill 22 in Two Days — Baghdad Grants PMF "Right to Respond"

What Happened: Two Days of Strikes on the Same Base

Tuesday, March 24: An airstrike on a PMF base in western Anbar province killed 15 fighters, including a commander, making it the deadliest single strike on Iraqi soil since the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran began on February 28. The PMF blamed the United States. (Sources: Reuters, March 24, 2026; The National News, March 24, 2026)

Following Tuesday's strike, Iraq's Ministerial Council for National Security ordered the Foreign Ministry to summon the U.S. chargé d'affaires and the Iranian ambassador, and to file a complaint with the UN Security Council. The government also granted the PMF a formal "right to respond" to attacks against it. (Source: Al Jazeera, March 25, 2026; Asharq Al-Awsat, March 24, 2026)

Wednesday, March 25: The same base was struck again. Iraq's Ministry of Defence confirmed that 7 fighters were killed and 13 were wounded in a strike that targeted the military healthcare clinic at the Habbaniyah base. The ministry called the attack "a heinous crime" that violated "all international laws and norms." (Source: Al Jazeera, March 25, 2026)

A security official quoted by AFP said Wednesday's strike hit the same base targeted the day before. A military doctor was among those killed on Wednesday, and six of those wounded belonged to the PMF, according to a security official cited by AFP and reported by Daily Sabah. (Source: Daily Sabah, March 25, 2026)

In total, the two strikes killed at least 22 people and wounded at least 13 over a 24-hour period at the same location.

Iraq's Response

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani on Wednesday instructed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to summon the U.S. Embassy's chargé d'affaires in Baghdad and deliver a "strongly worded letter of protest," according to a statement from his office reported by the New York Times. (Source: New York Times, March 25, 2026)

Iraq also formally announced its intention to lodge a complaint with the United Nations Security Council over the attacks, according to the prime minister's office statement. (Source: NYT, Al Jazeera — March 25, 2026)

Iraq's warning about the PMF's "right to respond" remained in force. Baghdad had affirmed this position the day before and reaffirmed it Wednesday, according to Al Jazeera. The PMF is legally part of Iraq's regular armed forces — they were formally integrated into the Iraqi military structure under Iraqi law in 2019, meaning strikes on PMF positions are strikes on Iraqi state security forces. (Source: Al Jazeera, March 25, 2026)

The PMF issued a statement condemning the strikes as "blatant aggression [that] constitutes a grave violation of national sovereignty and an unacceptable transgression against the Iraqi security forces." The statement called "upon all the sons and daughters of the Iraqi people to unite and stand together during this critical time, and to support state institutions and security forces in carrying out their sacred duty." (Source: Al Jazeera, March 25, 2026)

The Strategic Significance: First Strike Alongside Regular Army

Al Jazeera's correspondent Assed Baig, reporting from Baghdad, described the Wednesday strikes as an escalation on a specific dimension: "The strikes appeared to be the first time the PMF was hit alongside the broader Iraqi military," he said, noting that the healthcare clinic was a regular army facility sharing the base with PMF. He added: "Increasingly, Iraq is becoming a battlefield between Iraqi armed factions and the United States." (Source: Al Jazeera, March 25, 2026)

The U.S. Department of Defense has acknowledged that U.S. combat helicopters have carried out strikes against pro-Iran armed groups in Iraq during the current conflict, according to Al Jazeera. The Pentagon has not publicly confirmed specific strikes or casualties in the March 24–25 incidents at the time of Ranked's publication. Ranked has not independently confirmed U.S. attribution through official U.S. government statements.

Reuters, reporting on Tuesday's strikes, noted: "The move increases the risk that PMF factions will retaliate, potentially triggering a cycle of attacks and counter-attacks with the U.S. as regional conflict escalates. This risks Iraq becoming a direct arena for confrontation, making it far harder for Sudani to maintain his fragile balance between Iran and Washington." (Source: Reuters, March 24, 2026)

An Iraqi Kurdish government official, speaking to Fox News Digital about the situation, said: "So what — the Iraqi government will now fight the Americans?" (Source: Fox News, March 25, 2026)

Iraq's Position: Between Two Fires

Since the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran began on February 28, Iraq has been navigating an impossible position. Prime Minister al-Sudani's government has formal ties to both the United States — which maintains thousands of troops in Iraq under a counterterrorism agreement — and to Iran, which has deep influence over multiple major Iraqi political factions and controls significant PMF brigades.

The PMF, formally known as Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation Forces), was created in 2014 in response to the Islamic State's seizure of Mosul and was granted legal status as part of the Iraqi armed forces in 2016. By 2019 it was formally integrated into the Iraqi military command structure. The force was estimated at 100,000 to 150,000 fighters across 40–60 brigades, according to Grokipedia's analysis, though Ranked has not verified that figure against a current primary government source. Some brigades are closely aligned with Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps; others are more independent.

Pro-Iran factions within the PMF have claimed responsibility for attacks on U.S. interests in Iraq and across the region since the Iran war began. The U.S. has justified its strikes in Iraq as targeting Iran-aligned groups that threaten U.S. forces. (Source: Al Jazeera, March 25, 2026)

The Kurdistan region of Iraq has also been targeted — The National News reported that the Kurdistan region has suffered more than 200 attacks by Iran and pro-Tehran Iraqi militias, including drone and missile strikes on Erbil and Sulaymaniyah, since the Iran war began. Kurdistan's leaders have warned there are limits to their restraint. (Source: The National News, March 24, 2026)

Historical Context: U.S. Strikes on Iraqi Soil

U.S. strikes on Iraqi soil targeting Iran-aligned militias are not new. The January 2020 assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi PMF commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in a U.S. drone strike at Baghdad Airport triggered a crisis that nearly brought the U.S. and Iran to direct war — and prompted the Iraqi parliament to vote for the expulsion of U.S. forces, though those forces remained. Iran retaliated with ballistic missile strikes on U.S. bases in Iraq, injuring more than 100 U.S. service members.

The current situation is structurally different in one respect: the U.S. is now in an active armed conflict with Iran proper, not just striking Iranian proxies. The strikes are occurring in the context of an ongoing war, not as a targeted assassination. The political calculus for the Iraqi government — which must respond to domestic constituencies, to Iran, and to the U.S. simultaneously — is correspondingly more complex.

The filing of a UN Security Council complaint by Iraq is diplomatically significant but practically limited: the United States holds a permanent Security Council seat with veto power, meaning any binding Security Council resolution against the U.S. would be blocked. The complaint is better understood as a public record of protest and a signal to domestic and regional audiences than as an enforcement mechanism.

Why It Matters

The two-day pattern — same base, same U.S. attribution, and Baghdad's "right to respond" authorization — establishes a new dynamic in the Iran war. Iraq is not just a corridor or a context; it is now an active theater where U.S. strikes are hitting Iraqi state security forces (PMF members who are legally part of the Iraqi army) at their military facilities.

The Iraqi government's formal complaint to the UN Security Council and its summoning of the U.S. chargé d'affaires represent the most significant diplomatic protest by Baghdad toward Washington since at least the 2020 Soleimani strike. Whether it leads to any change in U.S. operational behavior in Iraq is, at this point, analytically contested and cannot be stated as fact.

What can be stated: the U.S. has now hit the same Iraqi base twice in 24 hours, killing 22 people including a military doctor, at a facility that includes regular Iraqi army medical infrastructure. Baghdad has responded with its most formal diplomatic protest posture since the war began — and has told the PMF it has a right to shoot back.