Iraqi PM Expresses Anger Over Biden’s Airstrikes
Mustafa al-Kadhimi met with the head of NATO on Wednesday
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Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi on Wednesday expressed his anger over President Biden’s recent airstrikes in Iraq and Syria during a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.
Even though Biden’s airstrikes targeted an Iraqi militia and killed civilians, the US said the bombing was a “message” to Iran. Kadhimi told Stoltenberg that the US-led coalition in Iraq should not use the country as a theater to attack other countries.
Kadhimi’s office shared a readout of the meeting between the Iraqi leader and Stoltenberg with Newsweek. The readout said that Kadhimi “indicated the importance of developing relations between Iraq and NATO for the interests of the Iraqi people and the stability of the region and the world, as he stressed the importance of Iraq not being an arena for settling conflicts, or a springboard for aggression against any of its neighbors.”
Iraq has found itself in the middle of Washington’s campaign against Iran before. In January 2020, the US assassinated Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad. Soleimani was killed alongside Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was the leader of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a group of mostly Shia state-sponsored militias that was formed in 2014 to fight ISIS.
The killing of Muhandis and Soleimani enraged many in Iraq, and the country’s parliament voted unanimously to expel US troops. But the US refuses to leave and continues to bomb PMF fighters, enraging the Iraqi government.
The militias Biden targeted fall under the umbrella of the PMF, and the group’s new leader is warning if the US continues to attack them, PMF fighters will take revenge on US troops. Biden’s airstrikes have already caused attacks on US troops in Syria.
On Monday, a spokesman for Iraq’s armed forces released a statementcondemning Biden’s airstrikes. “We condemn the US air attack that targeted a site last night on the Iraqi-Syrian border, which represents a blatant and unacceptable violation of Iraqi sovereignty and Iraqi national security in accordance with all international conventions,” the statement said.
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Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.
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The Globalization of War: America’s “Long War” against Humanity
Michel Chossudovsky
The “globalization of war” is a hegemonic project. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The U.S. military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.
- ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-6-0
- Year: 2015
- Pages: 240 Pages
List Price: $22.95
