By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer

 

Is the illegal presence of US troops in Iraq about to end – almost three years after the unanimous decision passed by the Iraqi parliament for closure of al-Asad and all American bases?

It should, or else Iraq will continue to be viewed as a US-occupied country whose authorities are subservient to dictates from Washington and whose peopleb are suffering the ignominy of a nation in thralldom.

Following the recent statement of the Iraqi prime minister that his country’s forces have the necessary capability to ensure security nationwide, hopes have been raised for the final end of the illegal presence of all US troops.

Mohammad Sheya as-Sudani in an interview with Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV Channel pointed out to the elimination of the macabrely murderous Daesh terrorist outfit, meaning that there is no further excuse for the American troops to remain in Iraq.

It should be noted that the US which occupied Iraq in March 2003 on the false claim of possession of weapons of mass destruction, started reducing the number of its soldiers known for their brutalities by 2007, and in 2011 had to withdraw all troops following the refusal of the then Prime Minister Nouri al-Maleki to renew any agreement for American military presence.

Washington then resorted to the devilish plot of grooming remnants of the overthrown Ba’th minority regime as part of the takfiri terrorist outfit it had set up in neighbouring Syria by assembling criminals and murderers from several Muslim and other countries under the dubious name of ‘Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)’ – infamous by its Arabic acronym of ‘DAESH’.

With American arms and directions from CIA and the notorious Zionist spy agency MOSSAD, the takfiri terrorists rapidly spread across northwestern Iraq, occupying towns and cities as far as Falluja – some 65 km from Baghdad.

Thanks to the mass mobilization call by Iraq’s senior religious authority, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Sistani, for the defence of the nation, coupled with the arms and advisors rushed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, Baghdad was saved from the onslaught of the murderous terrorists who were gradually repulsed from the towns and cities they had occupied.

The US was visibly alarmed and by duping the new government in Baghdad it began the reoccupation of Iraq in 2014 on the pretext of helping drive out Daesh, but actually tried to strengthen the position of the terrorists by dropping crates of arms on the claim of flying sorties, which instead regularly bombed the positions of Iraq’s Hashd ash-Sha’bi or Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) fighting the takfiris.

The Americans miserably failed in providing any foothold in Iraq for Daesh, largely due to the brilliant strategy of Iran’s Hammer of the Terrorists, General Qasem Soleimani, who in January 2020 was cowardly martyred at Baghdad airport along with his PMU partner, Abu Mahdi al-Mohandis, by the US.

Prime Minister Sudani who has made it clear that his country will never allow its territory to be used for attacks on neighbouring states, including Syria and Iran, is now asking the US to withdraw its troops.

It is time the Americans obliged and ended their occupation of Iraq, otherwise the PMU and all other patriotic forces will have no other option but to take action to close the al-Asad and other bases, even those in the autonomous Kurdish region.

The US forces are actively coordinating their acts of terrorism with the Zionist entity and the criminal elements in Syria and other parts of West Asia.