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Iraqi Parliament Calls For U.S. Troops To Leave The Country In Wake Of Soleimani Killing

By RFE/RL January 05, 2020

Iraq's parliament has passed a resolution calling for foreign troops to leave the country in the wake of a U.S. air strike that killed Iran's top military commander, Qasem Soleimani, near Baghdad last week.

The Iraqi government "commits to revoke its request for assistance from the international coalition fighting [the Islamic State (IS) extremist group] due to the end of military operations in Iraq and the achievement of victory," the lawmakers said in the resolution adopted on January 5.

The government of Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi "must work to end the presence of any foreign troops on Iraqi soil and prohibit them from using its land, airspace, or water for any reason," they added.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said the United States was disappointed in the decision.

"While we await further clarification on the legal nature and impact of today's resolution, we strongly urge Iraqi leaders to reconsider the importance of the ongoing economic and security relationship between the two countries and the continued presence of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS," Ortagus said in a statement, using an alternate acronym for the Islamic State group.

The United States has some 5,000 military personnel in Iraq, mainly as advisers.

Parliamentary resolutions are nonbinding to the government, but Abdul-Mahdi had earlier urged parliament to take urgent measures and end the presence of foreign troops as soon as possible.

"Despite the internal and external difficulties that we might face, it remains best for Iraq on principle and practically," he told lawmakers in a speech.

Meanwhile, Iraq's Foreign Ministry said it had summoned the American ambassador in Baghdad to condemn U.S. strikes on Iraq that killed Soleimani, an Iraqi militia commander, and other local fighters.

The strikes are "a blatant violation of Iraqi sovereignty" and "contradict the agreed-upon missions" of the anti-IS coalition presence in Iraq, a statement said.

Later in the day, Iraq's military said that two rockets had fallen inside Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, where the U.S. and other embassies are based, as well as the seat of Iraq's government.

Another rocket hit a nearby area, it said.

Several people were reportedly wounded in the attacks.

Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force, the foreign arm of Iran's hard-line Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), was killed on January 3 as he left Baghdad's airport in a convoy amid a regional tour.

The attack marked a significant escalation between Iran and the United States, with Tehran promising "harsh revenge."

Thousands of Iraqis attended a funeral procession for Soleimani before his body was flown to Iran, where hundreds of thousands of mourners on January 5 participated in processions honoring the commander.

In a series of January 4 tweets, President Donald Trump said he had ordered the strike on Soleimani because the Iranian commander had organized attacks on U.S. and Iraqi targets and that he was "preparing for additional hits in other locations."

"Iran is talking very boldly about targeting certain USA assets as revenge for our ridding the world of their terrorist leader who had just killed an American, & badly wounded many others, not to mention all of the people he had killed over his lifetime, including recently hundreds of Iranian protesters," Trump wrote.

"If Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture," he also said.

Trump's reference to hostages taken by Iran refers to the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 by Iranian revolutionaries, who held 52 Americans captive for 444 days.

The inclusion of "cultural" sites on a potential target list prompted immediate criticism from Iranian officials and observers.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the killing of Soleimani was a breach of international law and that any targeting of cultural sites would constitute a war crime.

"Those masquerading as diplomats and those who shamelessly sat to identify Iranian cultural & civilian targets should not even bother to open a law dictionary," Zarif wrote in a January 5 tweet. "Jus cogens refers to peremptory norms of international law, i.e. international red lines. That is, a big(ly) 'no no'."

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on January 5 defended the intelligence assessment that led to the air strike which killed Soleimani, saying not taking action would have posed a greater risk.

Asked about reports suggesting that intelligence behind the U.S. air strike was thin, Pompeo told ABC television: "The intelligence assessment made clear that no action -- allowing Soleimani to continue his plotting and his planning, his terror campaign -- created more risk than taking the action that we took last week."

In the interview, he defended the U.S. strikes as lawful and said that any target the American military may strike in Iran would be legal under the laws of armed conflict -- which prohibit the deliberate targeting of cultural sites under most circumstances.

"Every target that we strike will be a lawful target, and it will be a target designed with a singular mission -- defending and protecting America," the secretary of state said.

Pompeo also said there was no doubt in his mind that Iran "gets clearly the message from the American leadership."

In remarks aired later in the day on Fox News, he said "there is a real likelihood Iran will make a mistake and make a decision to go after some of our forces, military forces in Iraq or soldiers in northeast Syria."

Amid soaring tensions with Iran, the U.S.-led coalition battling the IS group in Iraq and Syria said on January 5 it had halted most of its operations against the militants for now to focus on protecting coalition forces and bases.

A spokesman said that the coalition could still carry out some operations and would act in self-defense against the militants.

As head of the Quds Force, the 62-year-old Soleimani helped orchestrate Tehran's overseas clandestine and military operations.

Both the Quds Force and the IRGC have been designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S. State Department.

Trump's decision to kill Soleimani was praised by his Republican supporters but criticized by many Democrats, who say it could draw the United States into a war with Iran.

Demonstrators took to the streets in many American cities to protest against the targeted killing.

Many traditional U.S. allies have also expressed concerns that the military strike could ignite a wider conflict in the already tense Middle East, although some have defended the United States' right to defend itself.

Washington has blamed Iran for orchestrating attacks by Iraqi Shi'ite militias on U.S. and coalition sites, including an assault on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad by a mob that included pro-Iran paramilitary groups on December 31. The attackers withdrew on January 1 and no staff was hurt.

With reporting by AP, Reuters, AFP, and dpa

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/trump- targets-iranian-sites-retaliatory- strikes-soleimani/30360757.html

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Iraqi Parliament Calls For U.S. Troops To Leave The Country In Wake Of Soleimani Killing