TEHRAN: Iran denied US and British accusations that it supported militant groups behind a drone strike in Jordan that killed three US military personnel, Tehran’s official IRNA news agency reported on Monday.
“These claims are made with specific political goals to reverse the realities of the region,” IRNA quoted foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani as saying.
There has so far been no claim of responsibility for the strike.
US President Joe Biden said on Sunday that “radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq” were behind the strike on the frontier base in Jordan’s northeast.
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron reiterated a call for Iran “to de-escalate in the region.”
Kanaani said such statements threatened “regional and international peace and stability.”
US Central Command said 34 personnel were also wounded, eight of whom required evacuation.
US troops operate at the base near Jordan’s border with Iraq and Syria as part of an international coalition against the Islamic State jihadist group.
The strike marked the first US military losses since the war between Israel and Hamas began.
Iran-backed Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on October 7 that resulted in about 1,140 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
Israel’s relentless military offensive has killed at least 26,422 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.
Iran denies links to Jordan drone strike that killed 3 US troops
https://arab.news/r7b8b
Iran denies links to Jordan drone strike that killed 3 US troops
Over 2,200 Daesh detainees transferred to Iraq from Syria: Iraqi official
- Iraq is still recovering from the severe abuses committed by the terrorists
BAGHDAD: Iraq has so far received 2,225 Daesh group detainees, whom the US military began transferring from Syria last month, an Iraqi official told AFP on Saturday.
They are among up to 7,000 Daesh detainees whose transfer from Syria to Iraq the US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced last month, in a move it said was aimed at “ensuring that the terrorists remain in secure detention facilities.”
Previously, they had been held in prisons and camps administered by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeast Syria.
The announcement of the transfer plan last month came after US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack declared that the SDF’s role in confronting Daesh had come to an end.
Saad Maan, head of the security information cell attached to the Iraqi prime minister’s office, told AFP on Saturday that “Iraq has received 2,225 terrorists from the Syrian side by land and air, in coordination with the international coalition,” which Washington has led since 2014 to fight Daesh.
He said they are being held in “strict, regular detention centers.”
A Kurdish military source confirmed to AFP the “continued transfer of Daesh detainees from Syria to Iraq under the protection of the international coalition,” using another name for Daesh.
On Saturday, an AFP photographer near the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria saw a US military convoy and 11 buses with tinted windows.
- Iraq calls for repatriation -
Daesh seized swathes of northern and western Iraq starting in 2014, until Iraqi forces, backed by the international coalition, managed to defeat it in 2017.
Iraq is still recovering from the severe abuses committed by the terrorists.
In recent years, Iraqi courts have issued death and life sentences against those convicted of terrorism offenses.
Thousands of Iraqis and foreign nationals convicted of membership in the group are incarcerated in Iraqi prisons.
On Monday, the Iraqi judiciary announced it had begun investigative procedures involving 1,387 detainees it received as part of the US military’s operation.
In a statement to the Iraqi News Agency on Saturday, Maan said “the established principle is to try all those involved in crimes against Iraqis and those belonging to the terrorist Daesh organization before the competent Iraqi courts.”
Among the detainees being transferred to Iraq are Syrians, Iraqis, Europeans and holders of other nationalities, according to Iraqi security sources.
Iraq is calling on the concerned countries to repatriate their citizens and ensure their prosecution.
Maan noted that “the process of handing over the terrorists to their countries will begin once the legal requirements are completed.”
