ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah on Friday condemned the recent deadly US-Saudi attack on pro-Iran militias in Iraq, calling it a “blatant and flagrant violation of international law and Iraq's sovereignty.”

“This blatant and dangerous aggression against an official Iraqi entity, with the participation of an Arab state, opens the door to extremely dangerous repercussions for the entire region. It serves only the interests of the American-Israeli project aimed at destabilizing the region, fragmenting the Arab nation, and plunging it into a spiral of tensions, disputes, and infighting,” Hezbollah said in a statement.

The Saudi defense ministry and US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced in the early hours of Wednesday that they had coordinated to carry out large-scale strikes against militias in Iraq allegedly responsible for attacks on Saudi oil facilities in the days before, accusing the factions of acting at the behest of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The strikes targeted several bases of the state-integrated but Iran-backed paramilitary umbrella group, the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), across seven provinces of Iraq, killing at least 20 fighters and injuring 32 others.

The attacks drew widespread condemnations across the Iraqi political scene, including the ruling Shiite Coordination Framework during an emergency session chaired by Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi.

Many Iraqi officials criticized the Saudi attack, saying it came before an investigation ordered by Zaidi into the attacks claimed by Saudi Arabia on its territory had been completed, with calls on Riyadh to provide evidence supporting its claims.

Hezbollah said, “it would have been more appropriate for Saudi Arabia to resort to dialogue and open diplomatic channels of communication with the Iraqi government to address any tension or crisis, instead of being dragged into the policies of the American and Israeli enemy and becoming mired in their schemes.”

The Iran-backed Lebanese group called for an “urgent, firm, and responsible” stance from the Arab, Islamic, and international community to put an end to “aggressive American policies” in light of the attacks.

The PMF is an umbrella group of Shiite militias that officially operates under the authority of the Iraqi state, but has been repeatedly criticized for including pro-Iran factions that operate at Tehran's behest.

Pro-Iran Iraqi militias conducted more than 600 attempted attacks targeting American personnel between February and April, CENTCOM said, threatening the IRGC and its alleged proxies to “cease these attacks to avoid further US military response.”