The spokesman for the Iraqi Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada anti-terror group says American occupation forces are resorting to airstrikes in their military acts of aggression against resistance forces as they cannot manage ground offensives on them and have miserably failed in such battles.
“The failure of American occupation forces to engage Iraqi resistance fighters on the ground has pushed them to resort to airstrikes against the latter. US forces have been defeated in ground offensives, so they carry out air raids,” Kadhim al-Fartousi said on Monday.
He underscored that Iraqi resistance groups will not cease operations against US-run military bases and installations unless American occupation troops fully withdraw from Iraqi soil.
“American forces are not our allies. Moreover, there are no documents acknowledging that they have been deployed to Iraq at the request of the Baghdad government. The government asserts no control over US bases, and Iraqi [resistance] groups are fully aware of such a fact as well as Iraqi statesmen’s limitations in the face of the US-led coalition,” Fartousi noted.
He emphasized that Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani should seize the opportunity and involve Iraqi groups in the course of negotiations with the United States.
A Sunday statement from the Iraqi parliament said Deputy Speaker Mohsen al-Mandalawi had stated the previous day that the bill adopted in January 2020, which requires the government to end the presence of all US-led foreign military forces in the Arab country, is “a fundamental and irreversible piece of legislation” and will not change because it enjoys popular support.
Mandalawi called on the Iraqi government to implement the legislation and to expand the capabilities of Iraqi security forces instead of relying on foreign troops to fight terror groups.
Last week, Sudani said Iraq seeks a quick exit of US forces from Iraq amid growing discontent about their presence in the country.
He noted that his government will soon start a process to negotiate the pullout of coalition forces from Iraq.
Iraq adopted the law to expel foreign forces after Washington’s assassination of top Iraqi and Iranian anti-terror commanders four years ago.
Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), were martyred along with their comrades in a US drone strike that was authorized by then-president Donald Trump near the Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020.
The two iconic anti-terror commanders are greatly admired for their instrumental role in fighting and decimating the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in the region, particularly in Iraq and Syria.
