KIRKUK — An airstrike early Thursday targeted a Popular Mobilization Forces base in the Badr neighborhood of Kirkuk, according to multiple sources.

A PMF source told 964media that one fighter was killed and seven wounded in the strike, which hit a base belonging to a brigade of Turkmen fighters commanded by Abu Ali Beg.

AFP reported higher figures — a Kirkuk security source told the agency at least two PMF members were killed, while a PMF official put the toll at three. Search and rescue operations were still underway at the site, which was engulfed by flames, with security forces deployed near the area close to Kirkuk’s airport.

In a separate strike early Thursday, the 19th Brigade of the PMF in the Akashat area of Anbar, near the Iraq-Syria border, was also targeted. A PMF source told 964media that 29 fighters were killed and 15 wounded. 964media has not been able to verify those figures.

The strikes follow a series of attacks on PMF positions since the regional war began Feb. 28. Five PMF fighters were killed and more than 10 wounded Tuesday in an airstrike on a Kataib Imam Ali position in Dibis district, Kirkuk. On Monday night, two strikes hit the PMF’s 51st Brigade north of Baiji in Salah al-Din with no casualties. Earlier strikes in Qaim, Anbar killed four PMF members and wounded 11 — with aircraft reportedly returning to strike as fighters evacuated the wounded. Suspected strikes have also hit Kataib Hezbollah positions in Akashat and sites in Jurf al-Sakhar, Babil, while fighter jets struck the PMF’s 30th Brigade headquarters in the Nineveh Plain, destroying weapons depots.

Neither the United States nor Israel has claimed responsibility for any of the strikes targeting PMF positions in Iraq.

AFP contributed to this report