Iraq: Kataib Hezbollah suspends operations against US forces in the region

Iraqi resistance faction Kataib Hezbollah (KH), which is an integral part of the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), has announced that it has suspended its military operations against US forces in the region “to prevent embarrassment” to the Iraqi government.

“We announce the suspension of military and security operations against the occupation forces,” said KH Secretary-General Abu Hussein Al-Hamidawi yesterday. “We will, however, continue to defend our people in Gaza through other means. We advise the brave fighters of the Hezbollah Brigades to adopt temporary passive defence measures in case of any aggressive American actions.”

BREAKING:

⚡ 🇮🇷🇮🇶 Iraqi resistance forces suspend their operations

Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq has announced that it is suspending its operations against US forces in Iraq and Syria

The leader of Kataib Hezbollah says the decision was taken so as not to embarrass the Iraqi… pic.twitter.com/fl9c239eL4

— Megatron (@Megatron_ron) January 30, 2024

The announcement comes as KH, which is aligned closely with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), is accused of being behind the drone attack on Sunday against the Tower22 US military base on the Syria-Jordan border. The attack killed three US soldiers and injured at least 40 others. Tower22 is located near Al-Tanf, the illegal US base in Syria.

The strike, believed to have been carried out using an Iranian-made Shahed drone, is considered to be the deadliest attack on US troops since thirteen were killed in a suicide bombing in Kabul during the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

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KH and other factions in the PMF have stepped up drone and missile attacks against the US military presence in Iraq and neighbouring Syria in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance in Gaza, amid Israel’s US-backed, genocidal war launched in October following the Hamas-led Al-Aqsa Flood operation.

Just last week, following a US air strike against PMF facilities, KH vowed “to expand the scope of retaliatory strikes from the military bases used by the US occupation forces to their interests in Iraq and the entire region.”

US President Joe Biden has since said that he has decided how to respond to the latest incident, but emphasised that, “I don’t think we need a wider war in the Middle East.” When asked by reporters yesterday if he thought Tehran was involved, Biden said: “I do hold them [Iran] responsible in the sense that they’re supplying the weapons to the people who did it.”

On Monday, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani was quoted by IRNA as saying: As we have clearly stated before, the resistance groups in the region are responding [to] the war crimes and genocide of the child-killing Zionist regime and… they do not take orders from the Islamic Republic of Iran. These groups decide and act based on their own principles and priorities as well as the interests of their country and people.”

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