Today, Friday, the Iraqi Hezbollah Brigades demanded the departure of the American forces deployed around the US embassy in Baghdad, considering that the presence of large foreign forces with heavy weapons among residential neighborhoods was "unreasonable."
The security official of the Hezbollah Brigades in Iraq, Abu Ali Al-Askari, said in a tweet on Twitter, that "the large military forces in the vicinity of the American Embassy of Evil must go out, because they constitute a grave threat to the security and safety of civilians in nearby areas, and a clear violation of the country's sovereignty."
He added, "It is not reasonable for an embassy of a country to maintain more than 2,500 security and military men with heavy and lethal weapons in the heart of residential neighborhoods."
Al-Askari also considered that targeting diplomatic missions does not constitute any interest as long as they do not constitute an imminent or clear threat upon which the wise people agree, as he put it.
Al-Askari said that the holy cities must be kept away from acts of violence, and excessive force should not be used to achieve goals even if they are legitimate.
pic.twitter.com/KUIcnVWDgH
- Abu Ali Al-Askari (@abualialaskary) September 18, 2020
The Hezbollah Brigades had previously threatened to target US forces ’presence in the country if they did not withdraw, in compliance with the Iraqi parliament’s decision to end their military presence.
Parliament voted on January 5 by a majority to end the foreign military presence on the country's territory, following the killing of the Iranian Quds Force commander, Qassem Soleimani, accompanied by Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Authority, in a US bombing near Baghdad airport.
The US embassy and military bases hosting US soldiers and diplomats have been subjected to repeated missile attacks since last year, as Washington accuses Kataib Hezbollah and other factions of the Popular Mobilization Forces close to Iran of being behind them.