Published: 11:08, January 19, 2021 | Updated: 04:45, June 5, 2023
Iraqi political bloc confirms commitment to pull out foreign forces
By Xinhua

US troops from the Combined Joint Task Force stand at a former presidential palace turned into an Iraqi base where some forces of the coalition were stationed in Mosul in the northern Iraqi province of Nineveh during a handover ceremony to Iraqi forces on March 30, 2020. (ZAID AL-OBEIDI/ AFP)

BAGHDAD - An Iraqi leading parliamentary bloc of al-Fatih Coalition confirmed on Monday that it would not retreat from demanding the Iraqi government to implement the parliament decision to withdraw foreign forces from the Iraqi soil, a local media reported.

The insistence of al-Fatih bloc, headed by Hadi al-Ameri, came because "the decision of ending the presence of foreign forces from Iraq was already passed in the Iraqi parliament and approved by the government of resigned Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi," spokesman of al-Fatih (Conquest) Coalition, Ahmed al-Asadi, told the Iraqi NINA news agency.

On Jan 5, 2020, the Iraqi parliament passed a resolution requiring the government to end the presence of foreign forces in Iraq, two days after a US drone strike on a convoy at Baghdad airport which killed Qassem Soleimani

Al-Asadi said that Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi included the implementation of the decision to withdraw foreign forces from Iraq in his political program when he assumed the post.

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On Jan 5, 2020, the Iraqi parliament passed a resolution requiring the government to end the presence of foreign forces in Iraq, two days after a US drone strike on a convoy at Baghdad airport which killed Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy chief of Iraq's paramilitary Hashd Shaabi forces.

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A few thousand US troops are leading international coalition forces tasked with helping the Iraqi security forces in the fight against the extremist Islamic State (IS) militants by carrying out airstrikes against their positions in Iraq and Syria as well as providing military equipment and training to Iraqi forces.