Trump: Iran will be held to account for attacks on US forces in Iraq
US President Donald Trump told Iran that it would be held responsible if any more American troops were killed or injured in Iraq by Tehran-backed militias.
Mr Trump’s remarks on Twitter follow Sunday’s rocket attack on the US embassy in Baghdad, the largest such attack for 10 years, according to US Central Command, the military headquarters responsible for American operations in the Middle East.
The embassy and joint IraqiUS bases have been targets for Iraqi militias in recent years. Mr Trump’s warning represents a departure for US policy.
In the past, Washington blamed Iran for hundreds of lethal attacks by Iran-backed Iraqi militias, a fractious force known as the Popular Mobilisation Forces. But the US has never gone as far as issuing a direct warning to Tehran – at least not publicly. Instead, the US preferred to put pressure on the Iraqi government to keep the groups under control.
Aware of the risk that the US would take action against them, Iran-backed PMF factions in recent months established new groups, claiming they were not linked to Iran.
Twenty-one rockets were reportedly fired during Sunday’s attack, half of them landing in the sprawling embassy complex. Of the missiles that missed their target, at least one hit an apartment block, while an Iraqi soldier near the embassy was injured.
A statement from Centcom said that the attack was “almost certainly conducted by an Iranian-backed Rogue Militia Group,” and was “clearly not intended to avoid casualties”.
Capt Bill Urban, who issued the statement, said that it was “important for the people of Iraq to understand that past attacks by the Iranian-backed rogue militia groups have killed more Iraqi civilians and members of the Iraqi Security Forces than they have killed Americans”.
He also said the US would hold Iran responsible for any US casualties, although Centcom commander Gen Kenneth McKenzie previously told The
Wall Street Journal: “We do not seek a war, and I don’t actually believe they seek one either.” His comments implied that the militias might exercise caution in future.
Kataib Hezbollah, one of the largest militant groups in the PMF, which has been accused of carrying out numerous similar attacks in the past, denied being behind the rocket barrage, calling it “irresponsible.”
Qais Al Khazali, leader of the PMF group Asaib Ahl Al Haq, also denied the embassy attack, although he added that attacks on US forces in Iraq were “a right guaranteed by the laws of heaven”.
While most of the PMF rocket
attacks have been off target, on December 27 last year one of the rockets killed a contractor at a joint Iraqi-US base near the northern city of Kirkuk.
US forces were training and advising the Iraqi army, continuing the war against ISIS, at the invitation of the Iraqi state.
The US retaliated to the De
cember 27 attack with air strikes – having warned the Iraqi government and the militias that its forces could legally defend themselves on Iraqi soil, following an agreement with the government in Baghdad.
Dozens of Iran-backed militia fighters from Kataib Hezbollah were killed in subsequent US air strikes.
Pro-Iran groups then attempted to storm the US embassy in Baghdad. At the time, the US received intelligence that Iranian general Qassem Suleimani, who oversaw advisory and funding efforts for the PMF, was meeting the de facto head of the PMF, Abu Mahdi Al Mu
handis, in Baghdad. Al Muhandis and Suleimani died on January 3 in a US drone strike near Baghdad’s international airport.
Iran retaliated by firing ballistic missiles at two joint Iraqi-US bases on January 7, injuring 100 American soldiers and bringing Iran and the US to the brink of war.
The Iran-backed PMF groups have not backed down, continuing sporadic rocket attacks, often through front groups.
As the anniversary of the death of Suleimani and Al Muhandis approaches, it is widely feared that Iran will launch a lethal attack against US forces in Iraq.
Washington has never gone as far as issuing a direct warning to Iran’s government – at least not publicly