ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A powerful pro-Iran Iraqi armed group on Sunday urged the Iraqi government to close the US embassy and expel American troops, threatening to strike US interests and personnel in Iraq if Washington intervenes in the Israel-Iran conflict.
In a statement, Kataib Hezbollah said that it is closely watching the movements of US forces and warned that any American intervention in the conflict would prompt the group to directly target US interests and military bases across the region. The group also voiced strong support for Iran’s stance against what it described as a “Zionist aggression.”
“Duty requires the Iraqi government, the brothers in the Coordination Framework, and the sincere leaders to bear responsibility and take a courageous stance to prevent the expansion of the war zone, by closing the embassy of the great satan [US] and expelling the American occupation forces from the country,” it stressed, calling the US the most dangerous threat to the region’s stability.
Kataib Hezbollah is part of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a network of shadow Iraqi militia groups backed by Iran and affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Tensions between Tehran and Tel Aviv boiled over on Friday when Israel targeted nuclear and military facilities in Iran. Since then, the two have launched back-and-forth salvos.
The Israeli attack was the culmination of numerous reports of a potential Israeli attack on Iran and came after the US State Department said it was reducing its diplomatic missions in Iraq and several Middle Eastern countries.
Baghdad has accused Israel of using Iraqi airspace to carry out its attack. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani expressed Iraq’s “categorical rejection of the use of its territory or airspace to carry out or facilitate any acts of aggression against neighboring countries” in a Saturday meeting with Steven Fagin, chargé d’affaires of the US embassy in Iraq, and Major General Kevin Leahy, commander of the US-led international coalition against the Islamic State (ISIS).
Fagin and Leahy told Sudani that Washington played no role in Israel’s action.
Iraq’s Shiite al-Sadiqoun bloc, affiliated with the Iran-backed Asaib Ahl al-Haq (AAH), also condemned Israel’s airstrikes on Iran, calling them acts of “criminality, treachery, and brutality” that killed Iranian leaders and scholars “in their homes and among their families.”
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