ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – An Israeli strike in Iran killed the personal guard of slain Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and a top official of a prominent pro-Iran Iraqi militia, sources from the groups told The New Region on Saturday.

Hussein “Abu Ali” Khalil, Nasrallah’s former personal guard, was killed alongside his son and Haider al-Musawi, a leading figure in Iraq’s Iran-backed Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, when their vehicle was struck by an Israeli air raid on Iranian soil.

Kadhim al-Fartousi, spokesperson for Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, confirmed to The New Region that Musawi died in the strike.

The group was reportedly headed toward Iran from Iraq. The precise location of the strike has not been revealed, but both Fartousi and the Lebanese Hezbollah confirmed to The New Region that they were killed after crossing the Iranian border.

Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting Hezbollah’s central headquarters in Beirut’s southern suburbs in September 2024. Khalil was a close confidante of Nasrallah and was nicknamed “the Sayyid’s shield.”

Iran and Israel have traded fire over the past week, sparked by an extensive Israeli bombardment targeting Iranian nuclear and military facilities across the country.

The escalation has sparked concerns in Iraq that the country would be drawn in to the conflict due to the presence of a large number of Iran-backed armed groups who have targeted American and Israeli interests in the past.

Abu Ala al-Walai, secretary-general of the Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, has in recent days repeatedly threatened to attack US and Israeli targets in the Middle East in light of the attacks on Iran, and called on the Iraqi government to expel American personnel for their alleged involvement in Israel’s use of Iraqi airspace for the attacks on Iran.

A day before Israel struck Iran, Walai said that “if war breaks out,” there will be hundreds willing to die in battle, and that “America's pride will be humiliated again,” threatening to target US personnel and its “agents” in the region.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella network of Iran-backed militias, claimed hundreds of attacks against Israeli and American targets between October 2023 and October 2024 in response to the war in Gaza.