BAGHDAD — The United States has sent Hellfire air-to-ground missiles to Iraq’s air forces, which is using them in an ongoing campaign against the country’s branch of Al Qaeda, officials in Washington and Baghdad said Thursday.
Two intelligence officers and a military officer said 75 Hellfire missiles arrived on Dec. 19 and more will be shipped in the future.
They said the missiles are being used by four Iraqi King Air propeller planes during a large-scale military operation in the western desert near the border with Syria. An intelligence official said the missiles were used to destroy four militant camps.
Jen Psaki, a spokeswoman for the State Department, confirmed the missile shipment and said the United States is planning to send ScanEagle drones.
‘‘The United States is committed to supporting Iraq in its fight against terrorism through the Strategic Framework Agreement,’’ she said, referring to a 2008 pact between the two nations.
Hellfires are widely used by US forces in their campaign against Al Qaeda, often targeting militant hideouts or vehicles.
Iraq launched its operation in the largely desert province of Anbar following the weekend killing of a senior military commander, a colonel, and five soldiers in an ambush.
Al Qaeda is believed to have made use of the war in Syria, which borders Anbar, to rebuild its organization in Iraq. Hard-line fighters are believed to shuttle between the two countries.
According to UN estimates, more than 8,000 people have been killed since the start of the year in Iraq.
Thursday, a salvo of rockets hit a camp that houses members of an Iranian opposition group that is at odds with the government in Baghdad, Iraqi officials and the group’s parent organization said.
The Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran said in an e-mail that ‘‘dozens’’ of rockets killed two of its members in the attack on Camp Liberty near Baghdad Airport. It said others were wounded.
An Iraqi security official said four rockets hit the camp and two people were wounded, none killed.
The group, Mujahadeen-e-Khalq, which is strongly opposed to Iran’s clerical regime, was welcomed into Iraq by Saddam Hussein in the 1980s during the war with neighboring Iran. Their fortunes turned sharply with the Iraqi dictator’s toppling in the 2003 US-led invasion. Iraq’s current Shi’ite-led Iraqi government, which has strengthened ties with Tehran, considers the group’s presence in the country illegal.
A disputed Sept. 1 attack at their longtime home in Camp Ashraf killed 52 MEK members — roughly half of the camp’s remaining population. The dissidents accuse Iraqi security forces of carrying out the killings. Baghdad denies involvement, with officials saying an internal dispute was to blame.
Meanwhile, a bomb attached to a bus killed three civilians and wounded six in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Jisr Diala, a security and a medical source said.