US must pressure Israel to end Gaza war instead of hitting Iraqi bases
A high-raking Iraqi official says the United States must push for an end to the Israeli atrocities against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip rather than carrying out strikes on facilities run by Iraqi counter-terror groups.
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Qassim al-Araji, national security adviser, said in a post on X that the latest US air raids in Jurf al-Sakhar, south of the capital Baghdad, as well as in al-Qa’im area on the border with Syria are in violation of Iraq’s sovereignty and “do not help bring calm.”
“The US side should pile on pressure for a halt to the [Israeli] offensive in Gaza rather than target and bomb the bases of an Iraqi national body,” Araji noted.
Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin announced in a statement that the US military carried out airstrikes in Iraq on Tuesday, targeting facilities used by Kata’ib Hezbollah and other resistance groups.
Two people were killed and two others wounded in the bombardments in al-Qa’im sector, according to an official at the Iraqi Interior Ministry and a former member of the Hashd al-Sha'abi forces.
In response, Iraqi resistance forces targeted a US-occupied military facility in neighboring Syria and Ain al-Asad Air Base in Iraq’s western province of Anbar.
Kata’ib Hezbollah military spokesperson Jaafar al-Husseini also said in a post on X that the group would continue to target “enemy bases” until the end of Israel’s siege in Gaza and a halt in unqualified US support for Israel’s campaign in the besieged coastal sliver.
Meanwhile, the prime minister’s office said in a statement on Wednesday that strikes by the United States on Iraqi military positions will lead to “irresponsible escalation” and violate the country’s sovereignty.
Iraq will consider these operations “aggressive actions,” the Iraqi government statement noted.
The Iraqi parliament also condemned US strikes which targeted sites used by anti-terror resistance groups as “open aggression” on the country’s sovereignty and a “blatant violation” of bilateral agreements and memoranda of understanding.
“Iraq’s sovereignty and the blood of its nation constitute a red line that cannot be crossed,” the legislature said in a statement.
Iraq adopted the law to expel foreign forces after Washington’s assassination of top Iraqi and Iranian anti-terror commanders four years ago.
General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), were martyred along with their comrades in a US drone strike that was authorized by then-president Donald Trump near Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020.
The two iconic anti-terror commanders are greatly admired for their instrumental role in fighting and decimating the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in the region, particularly in Iraq and Syria.
