Pro-Iran Iraqi group vows to pause US embassy attacks, with conditions

A pro-Iran group in Iraq vows to stop attacking the US embassy in Baghdad for five days, but only under certain conditions, with strikes targeting other locations in the country.

After a wave of strikes on the US embassy in Iraq’s capital Baghdad in recent days, AFP journalists reported no drone or rocket attacks on Wednesday night.

But on Thursday, an explosion was heard near Erbil’s international airport in the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region, said AFP journalists who also saw smoke rising near the fence.

Kataeb Hezbollah says the group’s secretary-general had “issued orders to suspend operations targeting the US Embassy in Baghdad for a period of five days.”

The Iran-backed group, designated by Washington as a “terrorist organisation,” lists several conditions, including Israel ceasing its bombardment of the southern suburbs of Beirut.

That area is a bastion of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which is also Iran-backed and is at war with Israel.

Iraq’s Kataeb Hezbollah also demands “a commitment to refrain from bombing residential areas in Baghdad and other provinces.”

Whenever “the enemy violates” the truce “the response will be immediate,” it said, warning of more strikes after the five-day period.