CNN
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At least three people were injured in five explosions at a military base belonging to an Iranian-backed militia in Iraq, a local security official told CNN on Saturday.
Muhanad al-Anazi, a member of the security committee in Babylon province, south of the capital Baghdad, said the explosion occurred at a facility belonging to the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU).
The cause was not immediately known.
A day after a military attack on Iran blamed on Israel, Israeli and U.S. officials said neither country was involved in the explosion.
The PMU, also known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, is a predominantly Shiite Iranian-backed militia based in Iraq. Unlike other Iran-backed groups in the region, the PMU is tied to local governments and closely tied to the Iran-aligned Shiite bloc that has long dominated Iraqi politics.
The PMU said the explosion occurred at the “Kars military base in Al Mashrou district, north of Babylon Governorate, along the highway.” Investigators are currently at the scene of the explosion, which also caused property loss, the PMU added.
“We will provide details as soon as the preliminary investigation is completed.”
The explosion comes after Iranian-backed Palestinian militants launched a deadly invasion of southern Israel in October, amid heightened tensions in the Middle East region where Israel is waging war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. It happened at the right time.
This month's retaliatory attacks also brought into the light the decades-long shadow war between Israel and Iran.
In a potentially dangerous escalation, Israel carried out a military attack on Iran early Friday, a US official told CNN. Israel has not commented and Iran has not identified the source of the attack, but no major damage was reported.
After the Iraq explosion, Israeli officials told CNN that Israel was not involved.
Meanwhile, US Central Command posted on social media: “We are aware of reports claiming that the United States conducted airstrikes in Iraq today. Those reports are not true. The United States is not conducting airstrikes in Iraq today.”
In 2016, Iraq's parliament passed a bill recognizing the PMU as a government agency working in cooperation with the Iraqi military. The organization is an umbrella group, with several units operating under its umbrella, including Iraq's powerful Kataib Hezbollah.
