Washington, Feb 8 : The US central command (CENTCOM) has said that it killed a a senior commander with the Iran-backed militia group Kata'ib Hezbollah in Iraq, allegedly involved in planning attacks on American bases overseas.

A U.S. official familiar with the matter said that a senior Kataib Hezbollah commander was targeted in a U.S. strike on Wednesday in Iraq. The official was not authorized to comment publicly and requested anonymity.

Two officials with Iran-backed militias in Iraq said that one of the three killed was Wissam Mohammed Abu Bakr al-Saadi, the commander in charge of Kataib Hezbollah's operations in Syria.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to journalists. The strike came amid roiling tensions in the region and days after the U.S. military launched an air assault on dozens of sites in Iraq and Syria used by Iranian-backed militias and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in retaliation for a drone strike that killed three U.S. troops in Jordan in late January.