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Destruction after US drone strike in Baghdad on February 7th
Photo: Hadi Mizban / AP
Since the Gaza war flared up again, pro-Iranian militias have been attacking US military bases in the Middle East, and Washington has responded with counterattacks - including in Iraq. Now the country has condemned the killing of the commander of a pro-Iranian militia in a US drone strike in the capital Baghdad and described the presence of the US-led coalition as a “factor for instability”.
"This course forces the Iraqi government more than ever before to end the deployment of this coalition," said the spokesman for the Iraqi armed forces, Jahja Rasul. There is a risk that Iraq will be drawn into the “vortex of the conflict.”
The US military responded again with a counterstrike in Iraq around a week and a half after the fatal attack on US soldiers in Jordan. Abu Bakir al-Saadi, commander of the pro-Iranian militia Kataib Hezbollah, was killed. According to US information, he was responsible for "direct planning and participation in attacks on US forces in the region." Al-Saadi was scheduled to be buried in Baghdad on Thursday.
Attack “without regard for the lives of civilians or international law”
According to armed forces spokesman Rasul, the attack occurred in the middle of a residential area of the Iraqi capital. The US attack took place “without regard for the lives of civilians or international law.” It is even more worrying that the coalition is constantly deviating from the actual "reasons and objectives of its presence" in Iraq.
The USA launched the coalition to fight the terrorist militia Islamic State (IS) after IS overran large parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria in 2014. In 2017, Iraq declared military victory over IS, whose cells continue to be active in the country and carry out attacks. US troops have been in Iraq since 2021. There are currently around 2,500 US soldiers in the country, but only in an advisory capacity. Both governments want to discuss the future of US troops in the country in a new dialogue.
Since the start of the Gaza war, pro-Iranian militias have carried out almost daily attacks on US military bases in Iraq and Syria. On January 28, one of the attacks in Jordan, near the Syrian border, killed three US soldiers. The USA has already responded to this with extensive air strikes against positions of pro-Iranian militias in Iraq and Syria. This is not the first time that Iraq has criticized US strikes against pro-Iranian fighters in its own country; this had already happened several times at the end of last year.
col/dpa