An American drone strike against the pro-Iran Harakat al-Nujaba, which comprises the Popular Mobilization Forces’ (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi) 12th Brigade in Iraq’s capital of Baghdad on Thursday killed two, including Mushtaq Talib al-Saeedi, better known as Abu Taqwa, a former commander of al-Nujaba and the deputy commander of PMF’s Baghdad Belt Operations.
“The government is in the process of setting the date to start working on the bilateral committee to make arrangements to permanently end the presence of the international coalition forces in Iraq,” Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani said during a memorial ceremony held by the PMF commemorating the assassination of Iranian top commander Qasem Soleimani and former deputy chief of the PMF Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
“We will not neglect anything that will give Iraq complete national sovereignty over its land and skies,” Sudani said, strongly condemning the US strike a day prior.
In a press briefing late Thursday, Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Ryder confirmed the strike and said Abu Taqwa “was actively involved in planning and carrying out attacks against American personnel.”
“It is important to note that the strike was taken in self-defense, that no civilians were harmed and that no infrastructure or facilities were struck,” he elaborated.
Six members of al-Nujaba were wounded in the strike.
“We affirm our firm and principled position in ending the presence of the international coalition after the justifications of its existence have ended,” Sudani reiterated, stressing that the Iraqi government “will not back down from this commitment.”
Sudani has previously said the coalition’s presence in Iraq is no longer required as ISIS has been rendered unable to pose security threats to the country.
On Thursday, the Iraqi government slammed the US-led coalition for the drone strike, calling it a “blatant violation of sovereignty” and “no different from a terrorist act.”
Al-Nujaba is among the Iran-backed groups that Washington blames for a spate of drone attacks on American interests in Iraq and Syria since mid-October in response to American support for Israel in its war against Palestinian Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a network of shadow Iraqi militia groups backed by Iran and affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has claimed responsibility for most of the recent attacks, numbering at over 100, on US troops in Iraq and Syria.
Around 2,500 American troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria are leading an international coalition through Operation Inherent Resolve that has assisted Kurdish, Iraqi, and local Syrian forces in the fight against ISIS, which once held swathes of land in Iraq and Syria but was declared territorially defeated in 2017 and 2019 respectively.
In a late December joint presser with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in Baghdad, Sudani praised Spain’s role within the coalition but said “the presence of capable Iraqi forces” ensures that their services are no longer required.
The Iraqi government previously denounced the attacks on US personnel in the country, but an American retaliatory attack against the pro-Iran groups which killed eight members of the government-linked PMF in late November triggered heavy backlash from Baghdad, who condemned the attack and labeled it as a violation of its sovereignty.
