Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has slammed the United States’ latest attack on the Jurf al-Nasr area, reiterating his country’s commitment to safeguarding its borders and sovereignty against any aggression.
Sudani made the remarks in a phone call with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on Saturday, emphasizing that Baghdad considers as a “violation of Iraqi sovereignty” the US attack on paramilitary forces stationed in the area last month.
He also reiterated Iraq’s unwavering commitment to protecting international coalition advisors currently stationed in the country, as he conveyed the Iraqi government’s staunch rejection of any attacks on its territory.
On November 22, US airstrikes killed eight members of the anti-terror resistance group Kata’ib Hezbollah in the Jurf al-Sakhar region.
Kata’ib Hezbollah, which has been targeting US forces in Iraq over the past weeks in response to Washington’s support for ongoing Israeli aggression on Palestine, said in a statement that it would attack a wider array of targets if US strikes are repeated.
Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), an umbrella group of paramilitary forces that controls Kata’ib Hezbollah, also said that it would never shun its responsibility for defending Iraq’s territorial integrity.
Resistance groups in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon have been targeting US and Israeli interests in the region since Israel launched a full-scale invasion of the Gaza Strip in early October with direct support from the US.
The groups have threatened to escalate the attacks if the Israeli carnage in Gaza is not stopped.
Kata’ib Hezbollah and other Iraqi groups have launched more than 60 attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria since the start of the Gaza war.
The US has responded by carrying out two series of attacks on resistance forces in Iraq and three others on their peers in Syria.
