‘The people don’t want the Americans’, Iraqis say: The Guardian

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: News websites
27 Nov 2023 16:40

As Iraqis mourn the lives of Resistance fighters killed by US attacks, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq affirms that its attacks on US bases will not stop until the US withdraws indefinitely from the country.

Iraqis attend the funeral of the Kataib Hezbollah members in Najaf, Iraq, Wednesday, Nov 22, 2023 (AP)

Dozens of men marched in Sadr City, Iraq, to pay tribute to Ali Hassan al-Daraaji, a martyr whose family has been a victim of multiple US attacks. Nine Iraqi fighters, including Daraaji, were killed after a sequence of US strikes.

The US attacks were launched on the Iraqi resistance fighters after they accused them of being involved in operations against US bases and American troops in Iraq and Syria, a token of their support for Palestine amid the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

The Pentagon is claiming that it acted in defense of its troops, who were deployed in Iraq to fight against the Islamic State despite the latter's formal defeat.

The Daraaji family, however, sees this as an act that serves the US and enables its meddling in Middle Eastern affairs, a direct violation of Iraq's sovereignty, and any other country in the region where the US has latched.

Men associated with Kataib Hezbollah attended the funeral. The group has emerged following the US war on Iraq and expanded since its merger with the PMF as a state institution in 2014.

Ali Daraaji and his uncle Dholfaqar both fought with the group, expressed anti-US sentiments, and blamed the US occupation for the destruction of Iraq. Ali is the 7th member of the Daraaji family to be killed by the US, as reported by the Guardian.

Dholfaqar has allocated responsibility to the US for all the deaths witnessed in Gaza. He said "All Iraqis stand with Gaza, not just the resistance factions, not just the PMF. Every time there is a war, we unite.” moving forward with a legacy of solidarity between Iraq and Palestine.

“If they hit the Americans, may God help them. We pray for their good luck,” Munir al-Obaidi, the vice president of the Council of Scholars, told The Guardian. The religious organization includes over a thousand Muslim clerics in Iraq.

A self-defeating combat operation

Kataib Hezbollah affirmed their stance in a statement on Saturday, saying the attacks will decrease throughout the truce between "Israel" and the Palestinian Resistance, but will not stop until Iraq is liberated and the US withdraws from the country.

American journal The American Conservative published a report by Greg Carlstrom, in which he says the continuous presence of the US in Syria and Iraq unnecessarily endangers American lives and puts the country at risk of a major war.

Carlstrom then underscored that "One group certainly not laughing about President Biden’s Syria policy (or lack thereof) is the over 70 US troops injured" after attacks started raining in on US bases in Syria and Iraq", especially since the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.

The magazine indicated that these forces are in Iraq and Syria, according to Carlstrom, as part of a "self-defeating combat operation," which remained on the low vis-a-vis the US people adding that maintaining US forces there "without a clear military mission" would "not make America safer."