Mourners march with the body of slain Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Abbas Nilforoushan during his funeral in Najaf, Iraq, Oct. 14, 2024. Photo by Qassem Al-Kaabi/AFP via Getty Images.
The United States has informed Baghdad that Israeli strikes in Iraq are “imminent” if the Iraqi government fails to stop Iranian-backed militias from attacking the Jewish state, Arab media reported on Wednesday.
The U.S. told Iraq it has exhausted “all means of pressure” on Jerusalem and has urged Baghdad to take swift action to prevent these attacks, the reports by Al-Hadath and other Saudi-owned news outlets claimed.
On Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar called on the United Nations Security Council to take “immediate action” against the Iranian-backed militias in Iraq launching drones and missiles at the Jewish state.
In a letter sent to the Security Council president for November, British Ambassador Barbara Woodward, Sa’ar expressed “grave concern over the significant increase in the frequency and the intensity of attacks on Israel conducted by the Iranian-backed militias” since September.
He warned that the ongoing attacks “have the potential to further drag the region in a very dangerous escalation while posing a significant threat to international peace and security,” noting that Jerusalem’s right to self-defense against threats from Iraq is enshrined in the U.N. Charter.
Israel has already warned the Iraqi government that unless it reins in the militias, it faces Israeli strikes on its territory, the Saudi website Elaph reported earlier this month. Unnamed officials told the news outlet that satellites were monitoring the movement of ballistic missiles and related equipment from Iran to Iraq, which could be used in an attack on Israel.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani dismissed Sa’ar’s letter as a “pretext and argument to attack Iraq” and to “expand the war in the region,” speaking in a statement on Tuesday. His office claimed that Baghdad has refused to enter into the regional conflict with the Jewish state while “seeking to provide relief to the Palestinian and Lebanese people.”
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an Iranian-backed amalgamation of terrorist groups, on Wednesday claimed responsibility for an attempted drone attack on a “military target” in Israel’s north on Tuesday night.
The IDF confirmed that it shot down a drone that was fired at the Jewish state “from the east,” a phrase the army uses to refer to Iraq. The drone was shot down before entering Israeli airspace, the Air Force said.
On Oct. 3, two Israeli soldiers were killed when an explosive-laden drone launched from Iraq hit an IDF base in the Golan Heights.
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