Roadside bomb exploded near US-led coalition convoy in Iraq
A roadside bomb has exploded near a convoy of trucks carrying equipment belonging to the US-led military coalition purportedly formed to fight the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in Iraq’s southern province of al-Muthanna.
The explosion took place on Sunday evening when a convoy of vehicles of Iraqi companies contracted with the coalition was moving along a highway linking the provincial capital city of Samawah, located 280 kilometers (174 miles) southeast of Baghdad, to Diwaniyah city in the neighboring al-Qadisiyyah province, Iraq’s Security Media Cell announced in a statement.
The statement added that the blast did not cause any casualties and only damaged one of the convoy trucks.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack yet, which is the latest in a series of explosions that have targeted US occupation forces over the past few months amid growing anti-American sentiments in Iraq.
Earlier on Sunday, anti-terror Kata’ib Hezbollah group, which is part of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), said all Iraqi resistance groups and factions will “use all the weapons at their disposal” against American forces in the Arab country if Washington refuses to withdraw its forces despite a parliament’s decision to expel them from Iraq.
Muhammad Mohi, spokesman for the group, said in an exclusive interview with Reuters news agency that Baghdad must implement the parliamentary resolution.
“The factions have presented a conditional ceasefire. It includes all factions of the (anti-US) resistance, including those who have been targeting US forces,” he said.
Iraqi resistance groups, in a joint statement released on Saturday, agreed on a conditional ceasefire to American forces present in Iraq, saying they would halt their military operations against the US troops, including rocket attacks, providing that Washington does not persist in maintaining its presence in the Arab country.
They stressed that the “conditional opportunity” was created “to respect the good efforts made by some national and political figures to draw up a clear and specific timetable for the implementation of the decision of the Iraqi people, parliament, and government on withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq.”
Anti-US sentiments have been running high in Iraq since the assassination of top Iranian anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, and his Iraqi trenchmate Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Units, along with their companions in a US assassination drone airstrike authorized by President Donald Trump near Baghdad International Airport on January 3.
Iraqi lawmakers approved a bill two days later, demanding the withdrawal of all foreign military forces led by the United States from the country.
Source: Abna 24
