Iraq to summon US envoy over deadly ‘American aggression’

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s foreign ministry on Saturday said it will summon the charge d’affaires of the United States Embassy in Baghdad to hand over an official note of protest against the deadly overnight strikes on militia groups that killed at least 16 people. 

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will summon the charge d’affaires of the US Embassy in Baghdad, David Burger, in protest against the American aggression that targeted Iraqi military and civilian sites,” the ministry said in a statement. 

The US on Friday night launched a major retaliation campaign against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF) and Iran-aligned militias in Iraq and Syria, striking more than 85 targets with over 125 precision munitions. The strikes killed at least 16 people and injured 25 more in Iraq’s western Anbar province, near the Syrian border, according to the Iraqi government. 

Iraq’s presidency condemned the strikes as a “blatant violation of Iraqi sovereignty,” saying it will hold an emergency meeting of the country’s four presidencies and political blocs “to discuss the aggression.”

“Iraq has expressed a clear desire to organize the work of the international coalition through a round of talks, but yesterday’s attacks will undermine the chances of success of the ongoing negotiations,” it said. 

Baghdad is currently engaged in talks with the US-led coalition against the Islamic State (ISIS) to wind down the mission and end the presence of foreign troops on Iraqi soil. The talks were instigated by Iraq’s anger over repeated US airstrikes on its territory, retaliating for more than 165 rocket and drone attacks on American troops in Iraq and Syria since mid-October by Iranian-backed Iraqi militia groups condemning Washington’s support for Israel in its war against the Gaza Strip.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a network of shadow Iraqi militia groups affiliated with the IRGC, has claimed responsibility for most of the attacks.

The most recent drone attack took place at a military base in Jordan last Sunday and killed three American soldiers. The overnight US strikes were in retaliation for those deaths.

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters that Washington had “informed” Baghdad prior to carrying out the attacks, an assertion denied by Iraqi government spokesperson Basim al-Awadi. 

US President Joe Biden stressed that attacks against Iranian and Iranian-backed militias will continue in Iraq and Syria. 

In neighboring Syria, at least 23 pro-Iran fighters were killed by the US strikes, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor. The Syrian defense ministry also said a number of its soldiers and civilians were killed in the overnight strikes in its eastern Deir ez-Zor province. 

Around 2,500 American troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria are leading an international coalition through Operation Inherent Resolve that has assisted Kurdish, Iraqi, and local Syrian forces in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS), which once held swathes of land in Iraq and Syria but was declared territorially defeated in 2019.