Four Iranian IRGC Members Killed in US-Saudi Air Attack

IRGC military equipment/DOK Fars News Agency via Wikimedia Commons

JAKARTA - Four members of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) were killed in a US-Saudi airstrike in Iraq on Wednesday.

Hasan Ghamari, deputy governor of Markazi Province for political, security, and social affairs, told Iran's state news agency IRNA that the four were on duty securing the Arbaeen pilgrimage when they were killed in Diyala Province, eastern Iraq.

Arbaeen marks the end of a 40-day mourning period to commemorate the death of Imam Hussein - the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad - in the seventh century.

Ghamari released the names of the four people identified as IRGC members.

A spokesman for the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) media office, Kareem al-Kinani, told CNN on Wednesday, July 29, six Iranian pilgrims were killed in the attack.

"Regardless of their profession in Iran, these six people entered Iraq as pilgrims, not as combatants or advisers as claimed by some parties," al-Kinani said.

It was reported that 20 people were killed and 32 others were injured as a result of the US-Saudi attack on Wednesday morning local time, according to the PMF, an umbrella group that oversees various militias that support Iran.