Pro-Iran Iraqi group says to pause US embassy attacks, with conditions

BAGHDAD: A pro-Iran group in Iraq vowed Thursday to stop attacking the US embassy in Baghdad for five days, but only under certain conditions, with strikes targeting other locations in the country.
After a wave of strikes on the US embassy in Iraq’s capital Baghdad in recent days, AFP journalists reported no drone or rocket attacks on Wednesday night.
But on Thursday an explosion was heard near Irbil’s international airport in the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region, said AFP journalists who also saw smoke rising near the fence.
A witness said two similar explosions were heard in the morning. Irbil is home to a major US consulate complex, while its airport houses US-led coalition diplomatic advisers.
Two drones also earlier targeted the US logistics center at Baghdad International Airport, which houses military personnel and has been regularly targeted, according to a security official.
One crashed within the center’s compound and the other fell into a civil aviation academy, the source said, adding that neither caused any damage.
The US embassy and logistics center has been targeted by drone and rocket attacks several times in recent days, with air defenses intercepting most of the projectiles.
Iraq has been drawn into the Middle East war triggered by the US-Israel attack on its neighbor Iran on February 28.
Strikes have targeted Iran-backed groups, which in turn have claimed near daily attacks on US interests in Iraq and across the region.
These latest attacks come just hours after Kataeb Hezbollah said the group’s secretary-general had “issued orders to suspend operations targeting the US Embassy in Baghdad for a period of five days.”
The Iran-backed group, designated by Washington as a “terrorist organization,” listed several conditions, including Israel ceasing its bombardment of the southern suburbs of Beirut.
That area is a bastion of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which is also Iran-backed and is at war with Israel.
Iraq’s Kataeb Hezbollah also demanded “a commitment to refrain from bombing residential areas in Baghdad and other provinces.”
Whenever “the enemy violates” the truce “the response will be immediate,” it said, warning of more strikes after the five-day period.
Two Hashed Al-Shaabi fighters were killed early Thursday in strikes in northern Iraq, according to the group, which said positions in the Nineveh region in Salah Al-Din province were targeted.
The Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), part of Iraq’s regular armed forces, blamed the strikes on the US and Israel.
Pro-Iran factions also have brigades that operate within the alliance, but have a reputation for acting on their own.