
Searing aerial footage has been released of US F-15 Strike Eagles decimating Iranian-backed militia targets last night in Iraq in retaliation for a rocket attack on an American contractor.

Iraqi security and militia sources said at least 25 Kataib Hezbollah fighters were killed and at least 55 wounded following three bombardments across the region on Sunday night. Another two strikes took place in Syria.

Iran condemned the attack as 'terrorism' while Kataib Hezbollah commander Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes said: 'The blood of the martyrs will not be in vain and our response will be very tough on the American forces in Iraq.'

Meanwhile the Iraqi military spokesman for outgoing Prime Minister Abel Abdel Mahdi rebuked the US for its intervention, General Abdul Kareem Khalaf said: 'We consider it a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and a dangerous escalation that will threaten Iraq and the region.'

The US said it had taken the 'necessary' overnight action to protect its personnel in the region following an attack two days earlier that killed a US civilian contractor and injured four US service members near Kirkuk.

Iraqi security and militia sources said at least 25 Kataib Hezbollah fighters were killed and at least 55 wounded following three bombardments in Iraq on Sunday night

Iran condemned the attack as 'terrorism' while Kataib Hezbollah commander Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes said: 'The blood of the martyrs will not be in vain and our response will be very tough on the American forces in Iraq'

These images depict what the U.S. military says are bases of the Kataib Hezbollah militia group that were struck by U.S. forces, in the city of Al-Qa'im, Iraq

Journalist Babak Taghvaee tweeted images of the aftermath of the US Air strikes, showing a raging inferno on the desert compound

'The Department of Defense took offensive actions in defense of our personnel interests in Iraq', Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said during a press conference at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.

Kataib Hezbollah is a group under the Popular Mobilization Units, an umbrella grouping of paramilitary groups mostly consisting of Iran-backed Shi'ite militias that was formally integrated into Iraq's armed forces.

Another spokesman for the Hezbollah Brigades in Iraq, Sayyed Jaafar Al-Husseini, said: 'Options are kept open as we are waiting for the leadership’s decision in this regard. There will certainly be an appropriate retaliation.

'The Americans had tested before the Iraqi resistance strikes, and our capabilities are now duplicated.'

Jewad Kadum, a PMU official, said in a statement that rescue operations were ongoing as well as the evacuation of the wounded, recovery of the dead bodies and the extinguishing of the fire caused by the airstrikes.

The locations included weapons storage facilities and command and control locations the group had used to plan and execute attacks on coalition forces, the Pentagon said during an earlier announcement.

Esper, appearing with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, said the retaliatory air strikes on Sunday were 'successful' and that all pilots and aircraft involved returned safely.

Iraqi security sources said on Monday that U.S. forces in Iraq's northerly Nineveh province were ramping up security overnight, with U.S.-led coalition jets circling the perimeter of its military bases in Mosul and Qayarah.

The United States had accused the group of a 30-plus rocket attack on Friday that killed the US civilian contractor and injured four US service members and two members of the Iraqi Security Forces near the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

Pompeo at the news conference said attacks have been going on for 'weeks and weeks weeks'.

US Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley are pictured at a press conference held at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, Sunday

The US fighter jets came in retaliation for 30-plus rocket attack on Friday that killed a US civilian contractor and injured four US service members and two members of the Iraqi Security Forces near the oil-rich city of Kirkuk

The footage shows black smoke being swept across a desert compound after it was struck by fighter jets in last night's raid

F-15 Strike Eagles hit five targets associated with Kataib Hezbollah, which is an Iranian-sponsored Shiite militia group, said Defense Secretary Mark Esper

The fatal incident was 'the eleventh rocket attack targeting an outpost housing American forces in the last two months,' according to Military Times.

'Today what we did is take a decisive response that makes clear what President Trump has said for months and months and months, which is that we will not stand for the Islamic Republic of Iran to take actions that put American men and women in jeopardy,' Pompeo said at the news conference.

Earlier this month, a senior US military official revealed that attacks by Iranian-backed groups on bases hosting US forces in Iraq were gathering pace and becoming more sophisticated.

The US has sent nearly 14,000 additional troops to the Middle East within the past six months in response to escalating tensions with Iran.

President Trump has not yet responded to Friday's attack, and Iraqi Security Forces are leading the response and investigation.

The US military has carried out 'defensive strikes' in Iraq and Syria against the Kataib Hezbollah militia group, the Pentagon said on Sunday, two days after an American civilian contractor was killed in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base (file photo)

The Pentagon said it targeted three locations of the Iranian-backed Shi'ite Muslim militia group in Iraq and two in Syria (file photo)

The Pentagon contractor who was killed has not yet been publicly named. All injured US troops are expected to make a full recovery.

In Iraq, several Iraqi militia fighters were killed on Sunday in an air strike on their headquarters near the western Qaim district on the border with Syria, military sources and militia commanders told Reuters.

The strike was likely carried out by drones and targeted Kataib Hezbollah, the sources said. Ambulances were heading to the area.

Three militiamen's bodies, including one of a local commander, had so far arrived at a field hospital near Qaim, an Iraqi army officer said.