The US Ambassador to Baghdad Matthew Tueller said that his country does not intend to maintain a permanent military presence in Iraq, warning of the victory of what he described as extremist rhetoric against the United States.
"There is a lot of misunderstanding about the relationship of the international coalition led by the United States and the Iraqi government," Tueller said at a press conference in Baghdad today, Monday, stressing that the two sides have achieved a lot in the war against ISIS over the past 5 years.
He continued, "We always hear from the Iraqi partners that the partnership with America must continue," but there are voices, which he described as extremist, amounting to launching missiles to target the American military and diplomatic presence, and this does not represent the Iraqi people or the interest of Iraq.
And he warned, "If this speech defeats the interest of Iraq, this will prompt a review of many issues not only between the two countries, but between Iraq and the international coalition in general."
Rocket attacks by Iraqi factions loyal to Iran on targets that include American diplomats and soldiers are frequent, the last of which was two Katyusha rockets that landed near Baghdad airport on Sunday, but they did not result in any casualties, and this attack is the third of its kind on important sites in the capital within days.
On Saturday, a missile landed in the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, which includes government buildings and foreign missions, and 3 missiles landed in the same area on Thursday.
The two attacks also did not result in any casualties.
Washington blames such attacks on Iran-backed militias, and Tehran has not commented directly on the attacks.
The Middle East nearly descended into a full-fledged war in January after an American drone strike killed the commander of the Iranian Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy head of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Authority near Baghdad airport, and factions allied with Iran vowed revenge for their killing.
And spread in Iraq about 5 thousand American soldiers and 2,500 others from the international coalition consisting of about 60 countries.