Baghdad denounces U.S. air strikes against militias

The Iraqi government on Monday condemned U.S. air strikes on Iranianbacked militias near the IraqiSyrian border, and one of the paramilitary groups targeted in the attacks vowed “open war” against U.S. interests in Iraq.

President Biden authorized the strikes against what the Pentagon said were facilities being used in attacks launched against U.S. forces in Iraq. The Pentagon said two of the targets were just across the border in Syria and that the third was inside Iraq.

In a statement, the Iraqi government condemned the strikes as a “blatant and unacceptable violation of Iraqi sovereignty and national security.” The statement issued by Maj. Gen. Yahya Rasool, military spokesman for Prime Minister Mustafa alKadhimi, called for avoiding escalation and said that Iraq did not want to be turned into an “arena for settling accounts” — a reference to the conflict between the United States and Iranian proxies in Iraq.

The U.S. strikes were the latest escalation in tensions over recent revelations that Iranianbacked militias in Iraq had increasingly been using small, explosiveladen drones in attacks on Iraqi bases, including those used by the CIA and U.S. Special Operations units, according to U.S. officials.

The strikes are expected to increase pressure on alKadhimi to order the remaining U.S. forces out of Iraq. Those forces are largely deployed to help Iraq fight remnants of the Islamic State group. While Iraqi military leaders have said that they welcome continued help from the U.S.led coalition, alKadhimi is being pushed hard by Iranianbacked political parties to expel them.

One of the groups hit by the U.S. air strikes, Kata’ib Sayyid alShuhada, said that four of its fighters had been killed in the strikes. “From now on, we will go to open war with the American occupation,” the group said in a statement.

Kata’ib Sayyid alShuhada and Kata’ib Hezbollah, the other militia group targeted, are part of the Popular Mobilization Forces, which formed to fight the Islamic State in Iraq in 2014. The forces were later merged into the Iraqi government’s security forces. But many of the Iranianbacked groups that are part of the Popular Mobilization Forces are only nominally under Baghdad’s control.