The US military says it has killed the commander of an Iran-backed armed group, Kataib Hezbollah, with a retaliatory strike in Iraq.

The US Central Command said on Wednesday that the commander was "responsible for directly planning and participating in attacks on US forces in the region."

The US Defense Department had earlier expressed its view that the group may have been involved in a January drone attack on a US base in Jordan that killed three US service members.

Last Friday, the US military carried out airstrikes against facilities linked to Iran's elite military forces in Iraq and Syria. A White House official expressed his view that the military's retaliatory attacks would continue for a certain period of time.

Security authorities in Iraq say the US military has carried out drone attacks in Baghdad. They said the attacks are a violation of Iraq's sovereignty, "dragging the region into dangerous repercussions."