BAGHDAD, Dec. 26 (Xinhua) -- A security member was killed and 18 people were wounded Tuesday in U.S. airstrikes on Iraqi security sites south of Baghdad, the Iraqi government said in a statement.

"The Iraqi government condemns the targeting of Iraqi security sites by the U.S. side at dawn Tuesday, which led to the martyrdom of a security member and the injury of 18 people, including civilians," said the statement by the media office of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani.

The attack was "a clear and unconstructive hostile act that contradicts the declared desire of the U.S. side to strengthen relations with Iraq," it said.

"We stress that this step harms bilateral relations and will complicate ways to reach understandings through joint dialogue to end the presence of the international coalition, and, above all, it represents an unacceptable violation of Iraqi sovereignty," the statement added.

An Iraqi official told Xinhua that the U.S. airstrikes hit bases of the paramilitary Hashd Shaabi forces in the provinces of Babil and Wasit in central Iraq, which led to human and material losses.

Earlier in the day, the White House said that U.S. President Joe Biden ordered the military to launch airstrikes against three locations utilized by Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated groups in Iraq after a drone attack on Monday on a U.S. base near Erbil Airport in northern Iraq wounded three U.S. service members, one critically. Enditem

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