Leader of Iraq’s al-Nujaba resistance movement has warned that the United States will pay dearly for killing five resistance fighters in northern city of Kirkuk.

Sheikh Akram al-Kaabi said in a statement on Monday that the US should expect more painful attacks by Iraqi resistance forces on its bases and interests in the Arab country following an airstrike that killed Nujaba fighters in Kirkuk a day earlier.

Kaabi said attacks by Iraqi resistance groups on US forces will continue until they are completely expelled from Iraq.

That came after US forces said late on Sunday that they had targeted a site in Iraq that has been used to launch drone attacks on US bases in Iraq and Syria.

Iraqi resistance forces said on Sunday that they had used drones to target the Al-Asad Airbase in western Iraq, where US forces are stationed, as well as an American military base in al-Khazra village deep inside the Syrian territory.

Iraqi resistance forces have launched dozens of attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria over the past two months in a bid to force Washington to end its support for the Israeli regime’s ongoing aggression against the Palestinians in Gaza.

The attacks are part of a larger regional pattern of anti-US and anti-Israeli action that has repeated itself since Israel launched its aggression against Gaza in early October.

That includes attacks on targets in the occupied territories by the Yemeni army and the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah.

Yemen’s ruling Ansarullah movement has also seized a ship believed to be linked to the Israeli regime.

The group has warned that it sees all ships linked to Israel that sail off Yemeni ports as legitimate targets.