Baghdad, March 6 (RHC)-- Iraqi resistance groups have announced a new phase of resistance against US forces in the country, vowing “confrontation with occupiers until the liberation of Iraq.”
“The resistance sees confrontation as the only option that guarantees the freedom, dignity of this country after exhausting all the means that others have bet on with the occupation,” the coordinating body for the Iraqi resistance factions said in a statement on Thursday, according to the Iraqi media.
“We are facing a new page from the pages of the resistance, in which the weapons of the resistance will reach all the occupation forces and its bases in any part of the homeland,” they said. Hailing the recent attacks against the “occupation forces”, the statement added that “the resistance has the legal and national right and popular support for all of that, but will not target diplomatic missions.”
“The Iraqi resistance is an Iraqi decision, and its choice is the choice of the Iraqi people, and it will continue circumstances and sacrifices until Iraq is liberated from the filth of the occupation,” it said.
The statement came a day after 10 Grad rockets struck the Ain al-Assad air base hosting American forces in the western Iraqi province of Anbar. The incident led to the death of two American contractors -- also known as mercenaries -- and injured as many as six people. It also resulted in material damage to both parts of the outpost.
An informed security source told Press TV that eight of the projectiles struck the “American part” of the base, while two hit the section that is assigned to the U.S.-led coalition. The raid was conducted days after the US military targeted the positions of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), known as Hashd al-Sha’abi, on the Iraqi-Syrian border, where they were engaged in fighting the remnants of the Daesh terrorist group.
Elsewhere in the Thursday statement, the Iraqi resistance termed as “traitorous” any party that stands as an obstacle against the path of resistance and its constant choice in confronting and expelling the occupier.
“It is the right of the resistance, rather its duty, not to pay attention to such bodies, but rather to prevent it by all means from hindering its strikes against the occupation,” they said.
Forbes magazine reported on Wednesday that the United States will likely deploy the Avenger air defense system in Syria, Iraq, to support US forces in the face of the growing drone threat.
U.S. military bases and diplomatic missions in Iraq have been repeatedly targeted in recent months as anti-US sentiments run high in the Arab country since the U.S. assassination of Iran’s legendary anti-terror commander General Qassem Soleimani and his Iraqi trenchmate Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy head of the PMU, last year.
The two anti-terror commanders were targeted along with their companions in a drone strike authorized by former U.S. President Donald Trump near Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020.
The Wednesday attack against the US-led occupation forces targeted the same air base that Iran openly attacked on January 8, 2020 as part of its retaliation for the Soleimani assassination, which also prompted the Iraqi lawmakers to push for the expulsion of the US-led foreign forces from their country.
