Iraqi resistance forces target three US-occupied military bases in Syria and neighboring Iraq in retaliation for Washington’s support for the bloody Israeli onslaught against the Gaza Strip.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of anti-terror fighters, in a statement published on its Telegram channel early on Saturday, claimed responsibility for the drone strikes on the US-occupied base in Syria’s al-Tanf region, near the borders with Iraq and Jordan, as well as the US-run facility in al-Shaddadi town, situated about 50 kilometers (31 miles) south of Syria’s northeastern city of Hasakah.
Earlier, combat drones targeted al-Harir Air Base, which houses US military forces in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq noted that the operation came in retaliation for US support of Israel’s devastating military campaign in the Gaza Strip.
There were no immediate reports about the extent of damage at the military facility, and possible casualties.
The United States, Israel’s biggest ally, has provided the regime with a raft of arms and ammunition since the initiation of the Gaza war.
Washington has also vetoed the United Nations Security Council’s peace resolutions that called on the occupying regime to cease its aggression.
Iraq’s prime minister said on Friday that the government will put together a bilateral committee to prepare for the withdrawal of US troops from the country.
The announcement came a day after a US drone strike killed the leader of a resistance group in Baghdad.
The Pentagon confirmed on Thursday that it carried out the strike which killed Mushtaq Jawad Kazim al-Jawari, a leader of Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, which forms part of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) umbrella group of paramilitaries.
“We are setting the date for the start of the bilateral committee to put arrangements to end the presence of the international coalition forces in Iraq permanently,” Prime Minister Mohammad Shi’a al-Sudani said, according to a statement from his office published on the social media platform X.
The US has 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria without a permit and an international mandate, having been involved in killing of civilians and trafficking of the country’s resources.
“We stress our firm position in ending the existence of the international coalition after the justifications for its existence have ended,” Sudani said.
The prime minister made the comments during a memorial event marking the fourth anniversary of the US assassination of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the former deputy head of the PMF who was killed in a US drone strike alongside Iranian general Qassem Soleimani near Baghdad airport in January 2020.
