“On Jan. 3, Iraqi police in Babylon discovered a land attack cruise missile of Iranian design that failed to launch. The use of Iranian supplied munitions by terrorist groups within Iraq and Syria endanger Coalition forces and local residents,” US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a post on X.
“The Coalition is appreciative of the efforts of the legitimate security forces in Iraq for their efforts to prevent future attacks,” it added.
Babil Police Command on Wednesday, sharing the same image as CENTCOM, said they “found a drone belonging to unknown people on the international highway, and it was detonated on site by anti-explosives detachments without any significant incident.”
American officials have recently underscored collaboration with Iraqi security forces to combat militia groups that have conducted scores of attacks on US troops in the country, but Baghdad is not happy about the US independently conducting retaliatory strikes.
“We do know that the Iraqi Security Forces have continued to assist in identifying in some cases where these Iranian proxies have conducted attacks against US forces and we're very appreciative of that support,” Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Major General Pat Ryder said during a press briefing on Thursday.
The following day, Iraq’s Security Media Cell denied that any cooperation exists between Washington and Baghdad regarding the militias and accused the Pentagon spokesperson of “mixing the cards.”
“We strongly deny the existence of such cooperation. On the contrary, yesterday's attack was carried out directly without the knowledge of any Iraqi military or security entity, as is the case with recent attacks that targeted security sites,” read the statement.
On Thursday, the US carried out an airstrike in Baghdad, targeting the Harakat al-Nujaba, which comprises the 12th brigade of the Popular Mobilization Forces’ (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi). The strike killed two people, including Mushtaq Talib al-Saeedi - a former commander of al-Nujaba and the deputy commander of the PMF’s Baghdad Belt Operations. Another six people were wounded in the strike, according to PMF media.
Iraqi militia groups are blamed for more than 100 attacks, mainly on US interests in Iraq and Syria, since mid-October, in response to Washington’s support for Israel in its war on Hamas in Gaza. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani has described the attacks as terrorism, but has also condemned the US’ retaliatory strikes.
Baghdad is now taking the first steps towards removing from the country foreign troops that were invited to assist in the war against the Islamic State (ISIS).
“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,” Sudani said during a memorial ceremony held by the PMF to commemorate the assassination of Iranian top commander Qasem Soleimani and former deputy chief of the PMF Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
