Salih: Iraq risks plunge into "chaos and violence"

On March 13, US warplanes struck targets associated with Kataib Hezbollah ("Brigades of the Party of God"), an Iranian-backed militia in Iraq, which US officials say is likely responsible for a rocket attack two days earlier on an Iraqi base that killed two US troops and a British service member, as Jack Detsch reports.

The exchange has further upended politics in Iraq. Iraqi officials are claiming that the United States also hit a civilian airport under construction in Karbala, killing a cook, as Elizabeth Hagedorn reports. Iraqi President Barham Salih referred to the attack on Taji air base that killed Americans as terrorism, but also condemned the US retaliatory strikes as a "violation of national sovereignty."

There is a March 16 deadline for appointment of a new prime minister, but that process again seems stalled. Ali Shamkhani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, made the rounds in Baghdad earlier this week, just days before the hit on Taji. The escalation comes as protesters seeking an overhaul of the Iraqi government torched offices of Iran-backed militias in southern Iraq, as Ali Mamouri reports.