Militia attacks violate rule of law, Iraqi sovereignty: coalition spox

US-led coalition spokesperson Colonel Wayne Marotto spoke with Rudaw's Shahyan Tahseen on Wednesday night, discussing recent drone and rocket attacks across Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, including on Erbil International Airport. 

Marotto reiterated that the coalition, in Iraq to defeat the Islamic State (ISIS), is in the country at the invitation of the Iraqi government, and will leave if the PM no longer wishes them to stay. According to the spokesperson, the recent drone and rocket attacks are violating both Iraq's sovereignty and the rule of law. 

He also said ISIS and outlawed militia groups have a common goal of creating instability and chaos in Iraq. 



Rudaw: Regarding last night’s drone attack on Erbil airport, where did this drone come from?

Col. Wayne Marotto: Well first, thanks for having me. And I want to thank my partner General Rasool and that powerful statement that he made about these outlaw militia groups.

I also want to say that the coalition is in Iraq at the invitation of the government of Iraq to defeat Daesh [Arabic acronym for ISIS.] Now each attack against the GoI, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and the coalition undermines the authority of Iraqi institutions, the rule of law, and Iraqi national sovereignty. US and coalition forces in Iraq always retain the right to defend ourselves. The coalition is not attacking these outlaw militia groups, they’re attacking us. And US strikes against the threats are a collective defense of US and coalition forces and our Iraqi partners. Now, this drone last night at the Erbil airport, again violating the rule of law, sovereignty, endangering people, it was one drone, which did not even make it onto the Erbil airport, and I believe it hit a wall and it started a fire, and that’s what happened last night, despite all the other reports, happened at Erbil airport.

Where did the drone come from, what size was it, and how much ammunition was attached?

No, I do not have that information. 

Did the drone land inside or outside the airport?

I believe, information I have, it was outside of the airport, but I am not exactly sure on that information. I think the Peshmerga could probably fill you in on that.

Did the drone explode or was it shot down?

The information I have, I believe that it went out of the sky on its own. The soldiers, the coalition forces at Erbil used counter force protection, but I believe that that drone on its own just fell out of the sky and caught fire.

What damage did it cause?

At Erbil? At Erbil there were no injuries, there was no causalities, and really no damage, except to a wall. 

Saadi Saadi, who is a member of Asaib Ahl al-Haq’s politburo, clearly said that Iraqi resistance performed the attack on Erbil, meaning there are legitimate legal groups that are openly performing these attacks. What is the stance of the coalition on this and what do you ask of the Iraqi government? 

We’re in Iraq at the invitation, if I understood your question, we’re in Iraq at the invitation of the Iraqi government to defeat Daesh. If the Iraqi prime minister doesn’t want the coalition in Iraq, then we’ll leave. The US, coalition, and the prime minister, they’re having strategic dialogue talks, they’re ongoing. From last year to this year, the US portion of the coalition has gone from some 5,000 soldiers to 2,500 soldiers, so you can see the decline. This is always part of the plan for the coalition to lessen the amount of soldiers in Iraq, because from the beginning of OIR [Operation Inherent Resolve], back in 2014, it was always the plan of the coalition to build that partner capacity of the ISF [Iraqi Security Forces] and the Peshmerga and the SDF [Syrian Democratic Forces], to build that capacity where they can take on Daesh themselves. And they have been doing that. And the ISF, and the Peshmerga, and the SDF have been doing a tremendous job fighting Daesh. Daesh is territorially defeated. They don’t have 110,000 square kilometers of territory, they don’t rule over eight million people, they have nothing. They have some tunnels and caves in the Makhmour mountains. So it has always been the plan of the coalition that forces would go down, and ISF would go up and take on the fight. So today’s mission, the ISF and the Peshmerga are out in front fighting Daesh, and the coalition will continue to support them, with intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, ammunition, logistics, and air power when requested. Again, coalition is here at the request of the government of Iraq. Again, if the prime minister of Iraq doesn’t want the coalition here, then we’ll leave. But those talks are ongoing and they’re way above OIR level, that’ s between the government of the US and the government of Iraq.

What are the details of the attack on Ain al-Assad base, what were the damages?

Okay so, I just want to say again, each attack against the GoI, KRI, and the coalition undermines the authority of Iraqi institutions, the rule of law, and Iraqi national sovereignty. What I have been told, information I have, is that 14 rockets from no doubt an outlaw militia group was fired into AAAB [Ain al-Asad airbase.] There were two injuries, two minor injuries that I know of, I am still getting information on that, and the damage is still being assessed. I saw that the OMGs [outlawed militia groups] had put out on social media that the coalition had returned fire and had started a fire and had damaged some buildings and a mosque. That is not true, that is disinformation, and the Iraqi security media cell within the last couple of hours put out a tweet saying it was the OMGs, it was the platform that they used to fire these rockets that caught on fire and damaged those local homes and that mosque. It was not the coalition that did that at all.

Today, there was another attack on coalition forces at al-Omar oil field in Syria. What happened and what were the damages?

The information I have, and I saw the tweet from the SDF spokesman, and I can validate that … a drone was seen there and just like the SDF spokesman said, the coalition and the SDF used counter force protection against that drone and the drone was defeated and it landed some other place. But there wasn’t an attack from that drone, because the SDF and the US soldiers there saw the drone and took counter measures, because again the US and the coalition always the have the right to defend themselves. They see a drone coming towards them, they can take counter force protection measures against it. And that’s what those soldiers did … but that drone did not fire or land in that base.

There is extra pressure on US troops recently. What will the coalition’s response be to these attacks generally, especially since more than 50 attacks have been conducted this year?

Well, again we have the right to defend ourselves, and a leader of those OMGs said that it’s open war against the US and the coalition. Again, we’re not attacking the OMGs, they’re attacking us. The coalition’s mission at the invitation of the government of Iraq, in Iraq, in portions of Syria, is to defeat Daesh. That’s what we want to focus on, but the OMGs and Daesh, they don’t want us to focus on that because they want instability. They want insecurity. They want chaos in this area. The coalition wants stability, security, and with that will come economic prosperity. That’s what we want. All the soldiers here, that are here fighting along with our ISF partners and our Peshmerga partners, we’re all away from families, some for more than a year. We all want to go home, but we know we have a righteous mission of helping the Peshmerga, and the ISF, and the people of Iraq to defeat Daesh, because it was just over six to seven years ago that Daesh came down from Syria into Iraq and committed crimes against humanity, wanton slaughter, hateful ideology. Again we’ve defeated them territorially. They’re still out there, they’re still a danger, they are resilient, they’re tough. They’re an insurgency right now with hit-and-run tactics, with murder, assassinations, with criminal gain, stuff that they do to get their revenue. The coalition with our ISF partners, with our Peshmerga partners, we don’t want to see a resurgence of Daesh where they go and have mass murder against Iraqi citizens or Kurdish citizens, we don’t want that. We now are on a righteous mission, they’re not going to make our morale go bad, because we know we are on a righteous mission with our partners. We’re here to help the Iraqi people defeat Daesh. So we’ll keep on fighting, we’ll keep on supporting the Iraqis and the people of Kurdistan with what we have, because we’re in it to win it, and we have won territorially, we just have to defeat this insurgency.