ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani’s military spokesperson on Thursday warned that further US strikes in Iraq could compel Baghdad to “terminate” the mission of the US-led global coalition against the Islamic State (ISIS). The statement follows a drone attack by Washington that resulted in the killing of an Iraqi commander in Baghdad the day prior.
A US drone strike in eastern Baghdad’s Mashtal neighborhood in the late hours of Wednesday killed three, including Abu Baqer al-Saadi, a leading commander of the pro-Iran Kataib Hezbollah armed group.
Yehia Rasool, Sudani’s military spokesperson, said in a statement on Thursday that the US strike “would undermine the established understandings and hinder the initiation of bilateral dialogue.”
He warned that “This trajectory compels the Iraqi government more than ever to terminate the mission of this coalition, which has become a factor for instability and threatens to entangle Iraq in the cycle of conflict.”
Washington blamed Saadi for “directly planning and participating in attacks on U.S. forces in the region,” according to a statement from the US Central Command (CENTCOM).
Washington on Friday night launched a major retaliation campaign against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF) and Iran-aligned militias in Iraq and Syria, striking more than 85 targets and killing at least 16 Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) fighters and injuring another 36 in Iraq’s western Anbar province, near the Syrian border.
The airstrikes were carried out in retaliation to the recent drone attack that took place at a military base in Jordan late last month and killed three American soldiers. US President Joe Biden warned that the response would be carried out in multiple phases.
American troops have come under more than 165 rocket and drone attacks in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan by Iran-aligned militia groups condemning Washington’s support for Israel in its war in the Gaza Strip since mid-October. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a network of shadow Iraqi militia groups affiliated with the IRGC, has claimed responsibility for most of the attacks.
Baghdad is currently engaged in talks with the coalition to wind down the mission and end the presence of foreign troops on Iraqi soil. The talks were instigated by Iraq’s anger over repeated US airstrikes on its territory
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 2019.
