ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Parliamentary efforts to expel US forces from Iraq are the new focus of the Iran-backed militia Kataib Hezbollah (KH) following the end of the siege on the US Embassy, an official statement has revealed.
The statement came after the group and other elements of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), known in Arabic as Hashd al-Shaabi, withdrew from the US Embassy in Baghdad.
Supporters of the Iranian-backed militias launched a siege on the embassy on Tuesday following US airstrikes on KH, a militia within the PMF.
“Heeding the call of Mr. Adil Abdul-Mahdi [Iraqi Prime Minister] to change the location of the [anti-US] protests, we changed the location, before serious work to legislate a law to expel foreign, criminal invading troops from dear Iraq,” KH said in a Wednesday statement.
The Iran-backed groups vandalized the embassy in response to retaliatory US airstrikes against KH elements last week.
On December 27, rockets were fired at the Iraqi K-1 military base in the province of Kirkuk. The base hosts US troops stationed in Iraq to train, advise, and assist Iraq forces against the Islamic State (ISIS).
One US civilian contractor was killed, and KH was largely considered responsible for the barrage of rockets. In response, on December 29, the US carried out retaliatory airstrikes, killing 25 fighters and members and injuring tens more.
“We reiterate that we will not rest until every last foreign troop exits our holy land, and we will follow up and monitor Iraqi political efforts in its constitutional institutions, especially the parliament, to commence next week in legislating this law,” the KH statement added.
“This will be a test to the representatives of the Iraqi people, a test to the will of them [MPs] to legislate this law,” the militia's spokeperson Mohammed Mohieh told Rudaw on Wednesday.
“If America challenged the will of the Iraqi people and insisted on staying in Iraq against the wishes of the Iraqi people, then this nation has the right to resist it and fight it with forces because international law allows it to do so,” Mohieh warned.
The parliament's Fatih coalition, which placed second in 2018’s Iraqi parliamentary elections, is made up of several political arms of the PMF.
Fatih has other allies, including that of former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law Coalition. Despite their differences, rival bloc Sairun Alliance, headed by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, may also join Fatih’s efforts in trying to expel US forces.
“We have a parliament, and the American presence can be rejected through law, to expel American forces through legal and constitutional means,” Saad al-Husseini, a Fatih MP, told Rudaw on Wednesday.
“We have a democratic process today, and if the law to expel US forces is legislated, we will resort to voting, and God willing, we will garner enough votes to have it passed,” he added.
This is not the first time that that Iran-backed groups have asked US troops to leave. US troops, who number up to 5,000, are stationed across bases in Iraq, and their presence has touched a nerve with Iran and its allies in Iraq.
On December 26, 2018, US President Donald Trump infuriated Iraqi leaders and militia groups when he visited the Ain Assad Airbase in a Christmas visit to troops, without meeting with Iraqi leaders.
The Fatih bloc and Sayirun Alliance started demanding that US troops be expelled on the basis of Trump’s behavior.
Trump stirred more unrest in March, announcing he would keep US troops in Iraq to “keep an eye” on Iran.
In February, Iraq’s outgoing Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi in February stated that US troops were invited by the Iraqi government during the war on ISIS, and called on political blocs to approach the matter responsibly.
Iraq’s President Barham Salih said in March that there is “consensus” among political blocs on US troop presence in Iraq.
However, calls to expel US forces never materialized. This time, due to the recent US airstrikes on KH, officially part of Iraq’s armed forces, those demands might pick up steam.
Iraq is still suffering from daily ISIS sleeper cell attacks, and US forces have proven invaluable in helping Iraqis in the fight against ISIS.
The Special Ops Joint Task Force of Operation Inherent Resolve, established by the US-led coalition to fight the terror group, have said that tension between the US and Iran damages efforts to defeat terror.
“The coalition forces are here to assist Iraq in its fight against Daesh. Missile bombing of coalition and Iraqi forces, and crowd violence at the American Embassy, organised by the Hezbollah Brigades, prevents us from assisting,” it tweeted on Tuesday, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS.
