Iraqi PM calls Israeli complaint over militia drone attacks a ‘pretext to attack Iraq’

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani dismisses an Israeli complaint to the UN Security Council about strikes by Iraq’s Iran-backed Shiite militias on Israel as a “pretext and argument to attack Iraq” and to “expand the war in the region.”

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar had earlier posted on X a letter to the Security Council saying that “Israel has the inherent right to self-defense… and to take all necessary measures to protect itself and its citizens against the ongoing acts of hostilities by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq.”

The Iran-backed Islamic Resistance in Iraq has claimed to have launched dozens of drones at Israel since war broke out last year with the Hamas terror group’s October 7, 2023, attack.

Most of the group’s attacks have failed to cross Israel’s border or were downed by air defenses, according to the IDF. Last month, two soldiers were killed by a drone launched by the group at an army base in the Golan Heights, and in September, one struck the Eilat port, causing damage and lightly wounding two people.

Sa’ar said some of the militias are part of the Popular Mobilization Forces — a coalition of mostly Shiite armed groups that’s technically part of the Iraqi army although it operates in practice largely outside state control — and urged the Iraqi government to “take immediate action to halt and prevent these attacks.”

Al-Sudani’s office says in a statement that Iraq has refused to enter into the regional conflict while “seeking to provide relief to the Palestinian and Lebanese people.”