ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - There is no evidence to back Saudi claims that the attempted drone attack targeting the kingdom's oil facilities was launched from Iraq, the spokesperson for the Iraqi prime minister told Rudaw on Thursday, a day after Riyadh and Washington carried out joint strikes against Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), reportedly in response to the drone incident.
"Despite the absence of any evidence or proof to substantiate the Saudi claims regarding [drone] attacks against its territories originating from Iraq, technical committees were nonetheless formed by the commander-in-chief of the armed forces [Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi] to verify this matter," said Sabah al-Numan.
He further noted that despite the lack of evidence, "communication was underway and there was a request from Iraq to form joint technical committees to investigate the facts regarding claims of attacks on Saudi territory originating from inside Iraq."
A day earlier, the PMF said "at least 20" of its members were killed and "32 others were injured" as a result of the joint American-Saudi strikes, which targeted a number of the organization's "official headquarters" in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, and five other provinces.
"The announced numbers of martyrs and wounded are considered a preliminary toll subject to increase or update," the PMF added.
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said Wednesday that the "precision strikes in Iraq" were launched against "Iran-aligned terrorists that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) directed to attack U.S. forces and Saudi energy infrastructure."
Meanwhile, the Saudi defense ministry on the same day stated it had launched the strikes "following reprehensible drone attacks carried out against the Kingdom by Iran-backed militias in Iraq," reaffirming "the Kingdom's determination to deter the perpetrators and its right to respond."
Numan further reiterated that "any attack is rejected, whether inside Iraq or targeting any state, and this is Iraq's message," he said, affirming his country's "readiness to uphold good neighborliness with its neighbors," and noting that Iraq is working with "partners" to spare the region "greater repercussions" from the ongoing escalation.
The senior Iraqi official also told Rudaw that he has "no sufficient information" on reports that Iranian advisors were killed in the US-Saudi strikes, but added nonetheless that "Iran is a friendly and neighboring state which helped Iraq in its war against the Islamic State [ISIS], and its relations with and support for the Iraqi security forces and the Kurdish Peshmerga forces were very significant" during that time.
Tehran's state media reported on Wednesday that four members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) were killed in American-Saudi airstrikes on PMF positions in Iraq.
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