After the attacks on the crowd .. Baghdad decides to summon the American ambassador and Washington accuses it of default

The Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that it decided to call the American ambassador after targeting a faction of the popular crowd, killing and wounding dozens, and Baghdad waved to reconsider the relationship with the international coalition, while Washington accused it of neglecting to protect its forces and asserted its right to respond to any attack.

The Iraqi Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it will summon the ambassador to inform him that Iraq is not allowed to be a battleground or a pathway to carry out attacks.

And the Iraqi government confirmed in a statement after the meeting of the National Security Council that what happened prompted it to review the relationship with the US-led international coalition and the working contexts with it. The Iraqi National Security Council has stressed that Iraq refuses to be a battleground or a party to any regional or international conflict.

On Sunday, US forces in Iraq announced that they had targeted locations of the Iraqi Hezbollah Brigades, three in Iraq and two in Syria, in response to the missile attacks launched by the battalions on Iraqi bases hosting American soldiers and diplomats in Kirkuk, which resulted in the death of an American civilian contractor and the injury of 4 American service personnel.

In turn, the popular crowd announced that the death toll from the shelling on its sites west of Anbar on Sunday had risen to 28, and the wounded to 51, and the leader in it, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, said the response would be "very harsh."

For his part, resigned Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi described the American attack on the crowd sites as a serious aggression, and said that the Iraqi government tried to stop it and prevent it, to no avail.

Abdul-Mahdi added - in a speech during Monday's cabinet meeting - that the attack was not based on evidence or data, but rather based on perceptions and situations caused by the tension and the Iran-US conflict.

For his part, the office of the Supreme Shiite Authority in Iraq, Ali al-Sistani, condemned in a statement Monday, "a sinful assault," stressing "the need to respect Iraqi sovereignty and not violate it under the pretext of responding to illegal practices by some parties."

As for the leader of the Sadrist movement, Muqtada al-Sadr, he expressed on Twitter his readiness to work with his rivals from the armed groups supported by Iran to end the American military presence in Iraq "in political and legal ways," adding, "If the American forces do not withdraw, we will have another behavior and cooperation with you."

The American position
On the other hand, a senior State Department official said that his country is not seeking a conflict in the Middle East, but it will not allow Iran to use its proxies to attack the Americans.

He added that in the past two months alone, 11 attacks took place on Iraqi sites hosting American forces.

The official at the American State Department confirmed that his country would respond anywhere to protect its interests and those of its allies, and not only in Iraq.

He also clarified that information had been shared with the Iraqi government to urge it to fulfill its responsibilities to protect the American forces hosting it, but it did not.

In turn, the US special envoy to Iran, Brian Hook, said that the American strikes, which targeted popular crowd sites, were to deter Iranian attacks, and that the Iraqi Hezbollah Brigades were a militia supported by Iran and violating Iraqi sovereignty.

Hook noted that the strikes targeted weapons depots and control sites to carry out attacks on Americans and Iraqis, and that the presence of US forces in Iraq is at the invitation of the Iraqi government.

Assistant Secretary of State for Middle East Affairs David Schenker also said that the targets hit were important, and that the target on the Syrian side was more important.

He stressed that the United States did not want an escalation, and that the raids launched on Saturday night were messages to Iran after months of restraint by the administration of President Donald Trump.

In this context, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo discussed with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres the recent attack in Iraq that killed an American contractor.

The State Department said in a statement that Pompeo confirmed during a phone call to Guterres that what he called the defensive attacks carried out by his country were aimed at deterring Iran.

But Tehran, according to government spokesman Ali Rabei, denied any role in the attack on US forces in Iraq, accusing the United States of trying to justify its attacks in violation of international laws and its killing of civilians through baseless allegations, he said.