Washington responds for the sixth time to the Iraqi factions and warns them: Stop the attacks immedi

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[size=52]Washington responds for the sixth time to the Iraqi factions and warns them: Stop the attacks immediately[/size]

[size=45]Baghdad/ Tamim Al-Hassan[/size]
[size=45]For the sixth time within one month, the United States responded with raids inside Iraq against sites belonging to factions linked to Iran, according to American allegations. The latest response in southern Baghdad revealed the presence of a private military college for one of the largest factions, the Hezbollah Brigades, in the Jurf al-Sakhar area, around which a lot of gas circulates.[/size]
[size=45]The head of an Iraqi center for studies on the activity of these groups believes that the mutual bombing operations between Washington and the armed groups will not stop unless “one of the parties is defeated.”[/size]
[size=45]One day after the US Treasury issued sanctions against an airline, three Hezbollah officials, and a money laundering company, Washington carried out strikes against three faction facilities in Jurf al-Sakhar and al-Qaim, west of Anbar.[/size]
[size=45]US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement, “US military forces launched necessary and proportionate strikes against three facilities used by the Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia and other Iranian-affiliated groups in Iraq.”[/size]
[size=45]He added, "These precise strikes are a direct response to a series of escalatory attacks launched by Iranian-sponsored militias" against American forces and the forces of the international coalition led by Washington to fight ISIS in Iraq and Syria.[/size]
[size=45]The response came after a ballistic missile attack last week on the Ain al-Asad base, described as the largest in 4 years, in which an Iraqi soldier was killed and two Americans were wounded.[/size]
[size=45]Video footage of the attack, which took place on Tuesday evening, showed the collapse of buildings in Jurf al-Sakhar and al-Qaim, and rescue operations for injured people from under the rubble.[/size]
[size=45]Al-Jazeera operations in the Popular Mobilization Forces confirmed, yesterday morning, Wednesday, that its headquarters in the Anbar and Babil governorates were subjected to an American air strike, leaving one casualty and injuries among the ranks of the fighters.[/size]
[size=45]Television channels close to the factions reported that one of the facilities targeted by the American response was the military college of the Hezbollah Brigades in the Jurf al-Sakhar area, north of Babylon.[/size]
[size=45]This city, which has been devoid of residents for about 9 years, has been controlled by the Phalange since then, and there are multiple stories surrounding it with the presence of “detention centers” and, more recently, “training centers for Hamas fighters.”[/size]
[size=45]Since 2015, the Brigades have prevented any government or semi-government forces from entering Al-Jarf. Since the end of last month, the area has not been subjected to 3 American attacks, the most recent of which was a raid at dawn yesterday.[/size]
[size=45]The US Secretary of Defense said that he and President Biden will not hesitate to take the necessary measures to defend American soldiers and US interests in the region.[/size]
[size=45]Austin added: “We do not seek to escalate the conflict in the region... so we call on these groups and their Iranian sponsors to stop the attacks immediately.”[/size]
[size=45]The factions responded in statements to their continued targeting of American interests due to the war in Gaza, while these groups had launched about 150 attacks in Iraq and Syria since mid-October.[/size]
[size=45]In addition, the Iraqi government called on the international community to assume its responsibility in supporting peace and security and preventing all violations in response to the American attacks.[/size]
[size=45]The government’s military spokesman, Yahya Rasoul, described these attacks as “a clear determination to harm security and stability in Iraq.”[/size]
[size=45]He added, "At a time when the understandings regarding the role and tasks of the members of the international coalition and its advisors present in Iraq have taken a positive step toward organizing the future relationship, we find that these actions are being committed to obstruct this path and to harm all agreements and axes of joint security cooperation."[/size]
[size=45]He stressed, “We will deal with these operations as acts of aggression, and we will take everything that duty dictates and what responsibility requires.” In order to save the lives of Iraqis.”[/size]
[size=45]Yahya Rasoul called on “the international community to assume its responsibility in supporting peace and security, and to prevent all violations that actually threaten Iraq’s stability and sovereignty.”[/size]
[size=45]Since the end of last month, the United States has carried out attacks against the factions in Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, Jurf al-Sakhar, Hilla (central Babylon), and Kirkuk, and a leader of the Nujaba movement was killed in the center of the capital two weeks ago.[/size]
[size=45]According to the director of the Iraqi Center for Strategic Studies, Ghazi Faisal, “The confrontation between the Americans and the factions linked to Iran will continue until it reaches a victor or a vanquished, and then the war will stop.”[/size]
[size=45]Faisal said in an interview with Al Mada: “The United States is implementing the national security theory approved by former US President Jimmy Carter in 1979, which believes that a threat in the Arabian Gulf or the Middle East means a threat to American interests.”[/size]
[size=45]Faisal mentions that when US Secretary Austin began the operations to respond to the factions, he said that these operations aimed to “protect American interests with regard to global energy security, international trade, and the security of the seas and oceans.”[/size]
[size=45]The director of the Iraqi Center says that the factions’ attacks on American interests “take place far from the arrangements of Iraqi diplomacy, and they have thwarted the government-led diplomacy efforts and confirmed the theory of the deep state, the duality in the political system, and the existence of military and economic institutions parallel to the state.”[/size]
[size=45]A faction described the presence of these groups as “a threat to Iraq in the long term because they cross borders, meaning they are subject to the influences and strategies of neighboring countries, geographically and politically.”[/size]
[size=45]He pointed out that attacks by armed groups “will lead to social and economic instability and could lead the country to chaos, in addition to the decline of investment opportunities for development and openness to foreign companies, and wars will have dangerous consequences for the country’s future.”[/size]
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