BAGHDAD: Two major Iraqi Shiite groups backed by Iran are demanding all US forces leave Iraq, opposing plans by Baghdad and Washington to keep some there for training and advisory purposes.
An Iraqi government spokesman said on Monday US forces — who number more than 5,000 — had begun reducing their numbers but some would remain.
The Badr Organization, a Shiite group that has a minister in Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi’s government, in charge of the interior, said any remaining US, troops would be cause for instability.
“The two governments should coordinate to ensure a full withdrawal. US presence will be cause for internal polarization and a magnet for terrorists,” Badr spokesman Kareem Nuri said.
Kataib Hezbollah, a more militant, secretive and anti-American group, repeated threats to attack US forces.
“We are serious about getting the Americans out, using the force of arms because the Americans don’t understand any other language,” its spokesman, Jaafar Al-Husseini, told Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV on Monday evening.
Kataib Hezbollah has strong links to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps and has threatened to attack US forces several times in the past, describing their presence as an occupation.
A US official in Baghdad said: “We take anything that sounds like a threat from anyone against Americans seriously.”
“There’s not that many of us here and we are all operating within Iraqi military bases. A lot of this is frankly just political posturing and trying to take advantage of stories in the press to make broader political points,” he added.
The US-led international military coalition helped Iraqi forces recapture territory taken by Daesh in 2014 and 2015, providing air and artillery support in the battle to for Mosul, and trained tens of thousands of elite Iraqi soldiers.
“The coalition will tailor our forces in consultation with our Iraqi partners in order to ensure the lasting defeat of Daesh,” the coalition’s director of operations, Brig. Gen. Jonathan Braga, said in a statement on Monday.
Braga said that even if the composition of the force changes, the coalition would maintain the capabilities and presence to continue to train, advise and equip Iraqi forces to ensure that Daesh does not re-emerge.
US officials said that while Daesh has lost most of the territory it once controlled in Iraq and Syria, there is concern about surviving fighters returning to insurgency tactics.
Iran-backed groups urge full US withdrawal from Iraq
Iran-backed groups urge full US withdrawal from Iraq
Family of Palestinian-American shot dead by Israeli settler demand accountability
- Relatives say Abu Siyam was among about 30 residents from the village of Mukhmas who confronted armed settlers attempting to steal goats from the community
LONDON: The family of a 19-year-old Palestinian-American man reportedly shot dead by an Israeli settler in the occupied West Bank have demanded accountability, amid mounting scrutiny over a surge in settler violence and a lack of prosecutions.
Nasrallah Abu Siyam, a US citizen born in Philadelphia, was killed near the city of Ramallah on Wednesday, becoming at least the sixth American citizen to die in incidents involving Israeli settlers or soldiers in the territory in the past two years.
Relatives say Abu Siyam was among about 30 residents from the village of Mukhmas who confronted armed settlers attempting to steal goats from the community. Witnesses said that stones were thrown by both sides before settlers opened fire, wounding at least three villagers.
Abu Siyam was struck and later died of his injuries.
Abdulhamid Siyam, the victim’s cousin, said the killing reflected a wider pattern of impunity.
“A young man of 19 shot and killed in cold blood, and no responsibility,” he told the BBC. “Impunity completely.”
The US State Department said that it was aware of the death of a US citizen and was “carefully monitoring the situation,” while the Trump administration said that it stood ready to provide consular assistance.
The Israeli embassy in Washington said the incident was under review and that an operational inquiry “must be completed as soon as possible.”
A spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Forces said troops were deployed to the scene and used “riot dispersal means to restore order,” adding that no IDF gunfire was reported.
The military confirmed that the incident remained under review and said that a continued presence would be maintained in the area to prevent further unrest.
Palestinians and human rights organizations say such reviews rarely lead to criminal accountability, arguing that Israeli authorities routinely fail to prosecute settlers accused of violence.
A US embassy spokesperson later said that Washington “condemns this violence,” as international concern continues to grow over conditions in the occupied West Bank.
Palestinians and human rights groups say Israeli authorities routinely fail to investigate or prosecute settlers accused of violence against civilians.
Those concerns were echoed this week by the UN, which warned that Israel’s actions in the occupied West Bank may amount to ethnic cleansing.
A UN human rights office report on Thursday said that Israeli settlement expansion, settler attacks and military operations have increasingly displaced Palestinian communities, with dozens of villages reportedly emptied since the start of the Gaza war.
The report also criticized Israeli military tactics in the northern West Bank, saying that they resembled warfare and led to mass displacement, while noting abuses by Palestinian security forces, including the use of unnecessary lethal force and the intimidation of critics.
Neither Israel’s foreign ministry nor the Palestinian Authority has commented on the findings.
