Iraq Condemns US Air Strikes as Unacceptable and Dangerous

Fighters from the Kataib Hezbollah, or Hezbollah Brigades militia, inspect the destruction at their headquarters in the aftermath of a US airstrike in Qaim, Iraq, Monday, Dec. 30, 2019. (AP Photo)
Fighters from the Kataib Hezbollah, or Hezbollah Brigades militia, inspect the destruction at their headquarters in the aftermath of a US airstrike in Qaim, Iraq, Monday, Dec. 30, 2019. (AP Photo)
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Iraq Condemns US Air Strikes as Unacceptable and Dangerous

Fighters from the Kataib Hezbollah, or Hezbollah Brigades militia, inspect the destruction at their headquarters in the aftermath of a US airstrike in Qaim, Iraq, Monday, Dec. 30, 2019. (AP Photo)
Fighters from the Kataib Hezbollah, or Hezbollah Brigades militia, inspect the destruction at their headquarters in the aftermath of a US airstrike in Qaim, Iraq, Monday, Dec. 30, 2019. (AP Photo)

Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi on Monday condemned US air strikes on Iranian-backed Iraqi militia bases, a move that could plunge Iraq further into the heart of a proxy conflict between Washington and Tehran.

The United States military carried out air strikes on Sunday against the Kataib Hezbollah militia in response to the killing of a US civilian contractor in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base, officials said.

Iraqi sources said at least 25 militia fighters were killed and 55 wounded.

"The prime minister described the American attack on the Iraqi armed forces as an unacceptable vicious assault that will have dangerous consequences," his office said.

Tensions have risen between Tehran and Washington since last year when President Donald Trump pulled out of a 2015 nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions.

Earlier this month, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Iranian-backed forces for attacks on bases in Iraq and said any attacks by Tehran or proxies harming Americans or allies would be "answered with a decisive U.S. response."

US officials said Washington had exhibited patience amid escalating provocations from Iran and its allies, but that it was time to re-establish deterrence against aggression.

"After so many attacks it was important for the president to direct our armed forces to respond in a way that the Iranian regime will understand," US special representative for Iran Brian Hook said in a news briefing.

Iran denies involvement in attacks on US forces and has condemned the raids as "terrorism".

Protests

The strikes come at a time of protests in Iraq with thousands taking to the streets to condemn, among other things, militias such as Kataib Hezbollah and their Iranian backers.

They also demand an overhaul of a political system they see as corrupt and keeping most Iraqis in poverty. About 400 people in Basra protested against the strikes, demonstrating in support of the militias.

The air strikes brought threats of reprisal. A leading militia leader vowed revenge against US forces in Iraq.

"Our response will be very tough on the American forces in Iraq," senior commander Jamal Jaafar Ibrahimi, also known as Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, said on Sunday.

Mohandes is a senior commander of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella grouping of paramilitary organizations mostly consisting of Iranian-backed Shiite militias that was integrated into Iraq's armed forces.

He is also one of Iran's most powerful allies in Iraq and formerly headed Kataib Hezbollah, which he founded.

Iraqi security sources said US forces in northern Iraq were ramping up security.

Iraq's government will announce its official position later on Monday, Abdul Mahdi said.

The PMF bolstered Iraq's security forces during their battle to retake a third of the country from ISIS. They were later formally integrated into Iraq's official security structure.

Regional rivalries

Iraq's Fatih alliance, a political bloc representing the militias which holds the second largest number of seats in parliament, condemned the air strikes.

Their main rival, populist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr who leads parliament's largest group, said he was willing to work with them to end US military presence in Iraq. But he also called on them to reign in their militias so as not to provide an excuse for further US attacks.

Iraq's influential top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani condemned the strikes but his office also denounced attacks by Iranian-backed militias on US personnel.

He urged Iraqi authorities to prevent such attacks and "ensure Iraq does not become a field for settling regional and international scores and that others do not interfere in its internal affairs."

Abdul Mahdi said his government's policy was to keep Iraq out of regional alliances and away from war.

Any escalation risks Iraq becoming the battlefield for a proxy war between the United States and Iran, which would also ensnare regional allies of both sides.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said he congratulated Pompeo "on the important operation by the United States against Iran and its proxies in the region".

Russia, which like Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah backs Bashar Assad's regime in Syria's war, said the strikes were unacceptable and counterproductive. The Syrian regime also condemned the strikes.



Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
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Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)

The Trump administration has notified the World Food Program and other partners that it has terminated some of the last remaining lifesaving humanitarian programs across the Middle East, a US official and a UN official told The Associated Press on Monday.

The projects were being canceled “for the convenience of the US Government” at the direction of Jeremy Lewin, a top lieutenant at Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency whom the Trump administration appointed to oversee and finish dismantling the US Agency for International Development, according to letters sent to USAID partners and viewed by the AP.

About 60 letters canceling contracts were sent over the past week, including for major projects with the World Food Program, the world’s largest provider of food aid, a USAID official said. An official with the United Nations in the Middle East said the World Food Program received termination letters for US-funded programs in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

Some of the last remaining US funding for key programs in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and the southern African nation of Zimbabwe also was affected, including for those providing food, water, medical care and shelter for people displaced by war, the USAID official said.

The UN official said the groups that would be hit hardest include Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. Also affected are programs supporting vulnerable Lebanese people and providing irrigation systems inside Syria, a country emerging from a brutal civil war and struggling with poverty and hunger.

In Yemen, another war-divided country that is facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, the terminated aid apparently includes food that has already arrived in distribution centers, the UN official said.

Aid officials were just learning of many of the cuts Monday and said they were struggling to understand their scope.

Another of the notices, sent Friday, abruptly pulled US funding for a program with strong support in Congress that had sent young Afghan women overseas for schooling amid Taliban prohibitions on women’s education, said an administrator for that project, which is run by Texas A&M University.

The young women would now face return to Afghanistan, where their lives would be in danger, according to that administrator, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Trump administration had pledged to spare those most urgent, lifesaving programs in its cutting of aid and development programs through the State Department and USAID.

The Republican administration already has canceled thousands of USAID contracts as it dismantles USAID, which it accuses of wastefulness and of advancing liberal causes.

The newly terminated contracts were among about 900 surviving programs that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had notified Congress he intended to preserve, the USAID official said.

There was no immediate comment from the State Department.