Baghdad said the US “is a destabilizing factor that threatens to drag Iraq into a cycle of conflict.”
Iraq has condemned the killing of an Iranian-linked commander in a US drone strike in Baghdad and said the US-led military coalition in the country was becoming a “destabilizing factor”.
Army spokesman Yahya Rasul said Thursday that repeated U.S. attacks in Iraq are forcing the government to end the coalition's mission.
The United States frequently claims that Iranian-backed militant groups are behind missile and drone attacks on American troops in Iraq and Syria.
A senior commander of Iraq's Iran-backed militant group Kataib Hezbollah, which the Pentagon said was responsible for an attack that killed three U.S. soldiers in Jordan, was killed in a drone attack on a vehicle in eastern Baghdad, security officials said Wednesday night. Officials announced.
The vehicles targeted were used by the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces, many of which include dozens of armed groups close to Iran.
Rasool said the U.S.-led coalition “is a destabilizing factor that threatens to drag Iraq into a cycle of conflict.”
He said the US military has “repeatedly and irresponsibly” carried out “clear assassination operations”, adding that such attacks “have no regard for civilian lives or international law.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington was “bombing targets around the region to prevent escalation, not to incite escalation,” according to Al Jazeera's Shihab Ratansi news agency in the capital.
“The escalation we've seen in the region is directly correlated and openly blamed on Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, so it obviously raises a lot of questions,” Ratansi said. “But the one thing the United States won't do is try to stop Israel from bombing Gaza.”
Rasool said the U.S. attack is even more concerning because “the coalition has consistently deviated from the reasons and objectives for its presence on our territory.”
The United States maintains multiple military bases in Iraq, which are used by the United States and its allies to fight ISIL (ISIS).
Last month, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani said talks would be held to schedule the end of the coalition's mission in the country.
“Administrative staff [are] He also said that this is not over and that there will be further attacks at a time and place of the United States' choosing,” Ratansi said.
“Targeted retaliation”
Iraq's Harakat al-Nujaba movement said “these crimes will not go unpunished” and promised “targeted retaliation”.
The spokesperson said that without a “firm official position from the Iraqi government,” the U.S. “violations” would not stop.
The Palestinian Authority, Hamas, said in a statement that the attack was a “violation of Iraq's sovereignty and security.”
Meanwhile, the Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah organization said, “The local resistance movement has full confidence in the Iraqi resistance movement,” and said the killing of its commander would only encourage it to continue its work to support the Palestinians. Ta.
