Ain al-Assad attack marks new phase of 'escalation’ against American bases: Iraqi resistance

Iraq’s Islamic Resistance, an umbrella group of anti-terror forces, says this week's attack on the US-occupied Ain al-Assad Airbase in western Iraq marks a ”new phase of escalation against American bases.”

Lebanon’s al-Akhbar newspaper carried the report on Wednesday, citing sources within the resistance’s Coordination Committee as making the remarks in connection with the rocket attack that had targeted the outpost two days earlier, injuring several American troopers.

The attack, the sources added, had come in response to the atrocities that have been perpetrated by the Israeli regime and its supporters, including the United States.

Enumerating some of the crimes, they cited the regime’s underway war of genocide against the Gaza Strip. More than 39,700 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed in the brutal military onslaught that is being carried out with complete political, military, and intelligence support on the part of the US.

They also pointed to Tel Aviv’s recent assassination of senior resistance figures in Lebanon and Iran, which experts assert, was carried out with certain American approval and possible intelligence assistance.

The promise of escalation by the Iraqi resistance came a day after the country’s Federal Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit that had been filed to facilitate the American forces’ withdrawal.

The lawsuit had been filed by two Iraqi lawyers, who had demanded that the court annul an agreement that has been made by Sudani and President Abdul Latif Rashid to enable prolongation of the forces’ presence on the Iraqi soil.

Rocket attack hits US-occupied base in Iraq; several American personnel injured

A rocket attack targets the US-occupied Ain al-Assad Airbase in the western Iraqi province of al-Anbar, injuring several American personnel members.

Monday's attack took place as a response to a recent threat conveyed by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, through which the US top diplomat warned Baghdad against the “consequences” of escalation against the American interests in the region, the Iraqi sources noted.

“The resistance in Iraq believes that the Americans' presence in the country poses a greater danger in light of the current regional changes, and, therefore, they (the forces) should be pressured and confronted with to permanently evacuate the Iraqi soil," they stated.

Meanwhile, a leader of Harakat Hezbollah Nujaba, one of the components of the Islamic Resistance, said that “targeting American bases and interests has become an urgent matter.”

Explainer: Why is Ain al-Assad US military base under Iraqi resistance attack again?

The Ain al-Assad airbase of US occupation forces in western Iraq came under rocket attacks twice in less than 12 hours on Monday, resulting in several military casualties.

The official put the urgency down to the procrastination and delay that had afflicted withdrawal of the American forces from the Iraqi territory. He also cited information confirming involvement of the Iraq-based American bases in the Israeli atrocities against Palestinians and resistance leaders.

“The coming period will witness continuous strikes against American forces, whether in Iraq or outside it, especially since all resistance factions agree that the occupation will not leave through government negotiations, but rather through military operations that may make it submissive and acquiescent to our demand,” he noted.

The Iraqi groups have been pressing for an end to the presence of foreign forces in Iraq more than a decade after a US-led coalition invaded the country in blatant violation of the international law based on false claims of it being in possession of weapons of mass destruction.

There are nearly 2,500 American troops in Iraq and some 900 in Syria as part of, what Washington claims to be, a fighting force against Daesh.

The US has maintained its presence, although the Arab countries and their allies defeated the Takfiri terrorist group in late 2017.

In 2020, the Iraqi parliament voted in favor of expulsion of the foreign forces after a US drone strike assassinated Iran's top anti-terror commander, General Qassem Soleimani, and deputy commander of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) counter-terrorism force, Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, outside Baghdad International Airport.

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