Iraq militant group says it is resuming attacks on US forces as base in Syria is targeted
An Iraqi militant group has said it will resume attacks on US forces in the country, as it appeared to claim responsibility for a strike on an American military base in north-eastern Syria which saw at least five rockets launched from Iraq’s town of Zummar.
Sunday’s strike against US forces is the first since early February, when Iranian-backed groups in Iraq stopped their attacks against US troops.
It comes one day after Iraq’s prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, returned from a visit to the United States and met with Joe Biden at the White House.
Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah said Iraqi armed groups had decided to resume attacks on the US presence in the country after seeing little progress on talks to achieve the exit of American troops during al-Sudani’s visit to Washington.
“What happened a short while ago is the beginning,” the group said.
Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, said several rockets had been fired “from Iraqi territory at the Kharab al-Jir base” in northeast Syria, where US forces are stationed.
A statement from the Iraqi security forces accused “outlaw elements of having targeted a base of the international coalition with rockets in the heart of Syrian territory”, at about 9:50pm local time.
Iraqi forces responded to the attack by launching a major search operation in northern Nineveh province which found the vehicle used in the attack, they said in a statement.
The security forces burned the vehicle involved, the statement added.
After a series of rocket attacks and drone strikes by pro-Iran armed factions against US soldiers deployed in the Middle East in the early part of the year, there had been several weeks of calm.
In January, a drone attack killed three US soldiers in the Jordanian desert on the Syrian border. In response, the US military struck dozens of targets in Syria and Iraq, aiming for pro-Iran forces, and drawing criticism from the governments of both countries.
The United States has about 2,500 soldiers stationed in Iraq and nearly 900 across the border in Syria as part of an international coalition created in 2014 to fight the Islamic State group.