Iraqi resistance forces announced this Tuesday, January 23, 2023, of two separate attacks, one against Israel and the other targeting US bases in Iraq and Syria.
The Iraqi resistance forces announced this Tuesday that it successfully carried out an overnight drone attack on Israel the Israeli port of Ashdod, the largest seaport in Israel in terms of cargo located in the southeast of Tel Aviv.
“In continuation of our approach to resisting the occupation, the Mujahideen of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq today, Tuesday, January 23, 2024, attacked the port of Ashdod in our occupied territories with drones,” the Iraqi resistance forces said in a statement Tuesday morning. The Iraqi factions had previously taken responsibility for attacking a vital target in Haifa using a long-range Arqab, an advanced cruise missile.
The attack on Israel came only a few hours after the same resistance group had conducted a number of attacks targeting US bases in Iraq and Syria.
“The Mujahideen of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq attacked, with two missile salvos at different times on Monday, the occupied Conoco base in Syria. The Islamic Resistance confirms its continued destruction of enemy strongholds,” the group said in a previous statement the same day. Adding up the attack carried out Tuesday, the Iraqi forces has now a record of 150 military operations against US bases in Syria and Iraq.
Rebuking the continuous attacks against US bases in the two Arab countries, the US Central Command issued a statement for its part and said that “several US personnel are undergoing evaluation for traumatic brain injuries caused by Tuesday’s attack by the Iraqi resistance forces.”
But the number of injuries from the US part is way more than just one case, as the New York Times reported early this Friday that “according to Pentagon officials, nearly 70 US personnel have suffered injuries in the attacks, including traumatic brain injuries, but all but a handful of the troops have been able to return to duty relatively quickly.”
For Iraqi resistance forces, it’s just the beginning of the show!
Tuesday’s attacks on Israel and the US seem not to be the end of the story for Iraqi resistance forces as Abu Ala al-Walaei, one of the top officials of the group, announced during the early hours of this Wednesday that the group intends to start what he called “phase two” of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq’s (IRI) pro-Palestine operations, which he said includes “enforcing a naval blockade on Israel in the Mediterranean Sea.”
“At a time when the criminal US occupation is again blatantly targeting our security forces … we urge the Mujahideen of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq to begin the second phase of their operations, which includes enforcing a blockade on Zionist maritime navigation in the Mediterranean Sea and putting the entity’s ports out of service,” Walaei said in a post on X.
Walaei, who is the leader of the Sayyid al-Shuhada Brigades, a faction within the larger Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) of Iraq, further noted that the second phase of the operations will continue until “the unjust siege on Gaza is lifted and the horrific Zionist massacres against its people are stopped.”
For countless times in the past few years, the Iraqi government has demanded the US army to respect the country’s sovereignty and security and stop reckless and arbitrary attacks against PMU under the justification of fighting terrorism.
Early this week, Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani stressed once again that the PMU is an “integral part” of the country’s armed forces,” and demanded the US not to attack them. Washington, however, seems to listen only to force, not dialogue.
