Iraq has strongly condemned the latest US airstrikes on positions used by anti-terror resistance groups in the western part of the country near the border with Syria, warning against escalation of the crises in the West Asia region.
Speaking at a UN Security Council meeting on threats to international peace and security in New York City on Monday afternoon, Deputy Permanent Representative of Iraq, Abbas Kadhom Obaid al-Fatlawi, said crises in the region are all linked.
“We have already cautioned against escalation,” Fatlawi noted, adding that Iraq is carrying out a balanced foreign policy to ensure its natural role as a key player in the region and around the world.
He said Iraq had been working very hard to become a source of stability and bridge the differences throughout West Asia.
The Iraqi diplomat pointed out that the Baghdad government condemns and categorically rejects attacks by some allied and friendly countries that violate the Iraq’s sovereignty based on futile and illogical pretexts.
“We reject all types of attacks against our military bases, which are a violation of our sovereignty and security. This Security Council must protect the territorial integrity of all states,” Fatlawi underscored.
‘Flimsy pretexts’ by US: Syrian UN ambassador
For his part, Syria’s UN Ambassador Qusay al-Dahhak stated that the arguments heard at the meeting were the “same flimsy pretexts and misleading claims the US administration is promoting to justify its repeated attacks” on the Arab nation.
This included presenting a “distorted and wrongful interpretation” of the provisions of the UN Charter, especially Article 51, and that the root causes of conflicts, suffering and instability in the region are the “wrongful and destructive policies” of the US, Dahhak said.
He also slammed Washington’s “blind and unlimited” support for the Israeli occupation and the atrocities Israel is committing against Palestinian people.
Dahhak further noted that successive US administrations have misused their permanent membership of the Security Council and interfered thoroughly in the internal affairs of other countries, including Syria.
The US has formed military coalitions outside the United Nations and international legitimacy, perpetrating acts of aggression and occupation, the Syrian diplomat said.
He stressed that Syria completely rejects all the “pretexts and lies” that the US administration is trying to use to justify its aggression which aims to protect its agents in the region.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement on Friday that its military forces struck more than 85 targets in the two countries “with numerous aircraft to include long-range bombers flown from the United States.”
“The air strikes employed more than 125 precision munitions,” it added in a statement.
US President Joe Biden also stated that the strikes were the first in a series of actions by Washington in response to a drone attack that killed a number of soldiers at a remote US base in Jordan.
“Our response began today,” Biden said. “It will continue at times and places of our choosing,” he stated.
Three US soldiers were killed and about 40 others injured in the assault on the military base known as Tower 22 near the Jordan-Syria border on Sunday.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of anti-terror fighters, in a statement published on its Telegram channel claimed responsibility for the drone strike.
In retaliation for the flurry of US aerial assaults on several locations in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq announced that it had conducted missile strikes against the Ain al-Asad Airbase, housing US occupation forces in the western Iraqi province of al-Anbar.
The group also said it had staged missile and drone strikes against the strategic al-Tanf military base in southeastern Syria near the border with Jordan and Iraq, as well as the al-Khadra Village in Syria’s northeastern province of al-Hasakah.
