“We vehemently condemn the attack on Jurf al-Nasr, executed without the knowledge of Iraqi government agencies. This action is a blatant violation of sovereignty and an attempt to destabilize the security situation,” Basem al-Awadi, spokesperson for the Iraqi government, said in a statement.
The statement came hours after US warplanes struck pro-Iran fighters in Jurf al-Nasr (formerly Jurf al-Sakhar) in northern Babil province, around 60 kilometers southwest of Baghdad. Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi) confirmed to AFP that the strikes left eight fighters dead.
Wednesday’s strike came hours after the US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced its first retaliatory strike targeting Iran-backed groups in Iraq since the start of the attacks on American personnel in Iraq and Syria over Washington’s support for Israel in its war against Gaza. The first retaliatory strike resulted in “several enemy casualties,” according to CENTCOM.
“The Iraqi government is solely dedicated to enforcing the law and holding violators accountable, a prerogative exclusively within its purview. No party or foreign agency has the right to assume this role, as it contradicts Iraqi constitutional sovereignty and international law,” the government statement said, labeling the recent escalations as “a dangerous development.”
He further criticized the US-led global coalition against the Islamic State (ISIS) for steering away from its intended mission of supporting Iraqi armed forces in the fight against the jihadist group.
“The recent incident represents a clear violation of the coalition’s mission to combat Daesh [Arabic acronym for ISIS] on Iraqi soil,” the statement added.
Awadi also criticized the pro-Iran militias for carrying out armed activities outside the Iraqi security apparatus.
“Any armed action or activity outside the military institution is deemed condemnable and an unlawful endeavor that jeopardizes the national interest. Also any armed elements or entity failing to adhere to this principle are acting against the national interest,” he said.
Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters in Washington on Tuesday that American personnel “have been attacked approximately 66 times since October 17 – 32 separate times in Iraq and 34 separate times in Syria,” and that the attacks have caused 62 injuries to US personnel.
On Tuesday, a US airstrike targeted Iran-backed militiamen in western Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib district, killing one. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq hours after announced the death of a member of Kataib Hezbollah, a pro-Iran Iraqi militia designated as a terrorist organization by Washington for attacking American troops in Iraq.
CENTCOM said the Tuesday strike “resulted in several enemy casualties” and was conducted in retaliation to a missile attack by Iran-backed militias on western Iraq’s Ain al-Asad airbase, housing US troops, which injured eight and caused damages to infrastructure.
The US has carried out numerous retaliatory strikes against Iran-backed militia targets in Syria, who have carried out dozens of attacks on US personnel in Iraq and Syria in response for American support for Israel in the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.
On November 13, a US retaliatory strike targeted two Iran-linked facilities in Syria’s eastern Deir ez-Zor province.
Days prior, the US targeted a weapons storage facility in Deir ez-Zor linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), at the direction of President Joe Biden, two weeks after it targeted two facilities in the country that were being used by Iran-backed militias.
US troops in Iraq and Syria have come under target of a series of rocket and drone attacks by pro-Iran militias since mid-October, in retaliation to Washington’s support for Israel in its war against Palestinian Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip in retaliation for their cross-border incursion into Israel on October 7.
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 devoid of territorial control in 2017 and 2019 respectively.
