Coalition’s Brigadier General Vincent Barker (R), Iraq’s Staff Major General Mohammad Fadhel Abbas (C) and Iraq’s Airforce Major General Shehab Zahed Ali (L) attend a handover ceremony at the Qayyarah air base. (Credit: Ahmad al-Rubaye, AFP)
Ongoing rocket attacks against US-led Coalition forces on Iraqi soil and the burgeoning threat of the Coronavirus pandemic are accelerating efforts between the Pentagon and Iraqi Ministry of Defense to transfer security responsibilities in the fractured Middle Eastern nation.
The streets of Baghdad, Najaf and Basra, previously filled with demonstrators protesting government corruption and Iranian influence, were empty this week during enforced curfews. The announcement yesterday of over 450 Coronavirus cases and 40 fatalities as a result of the virulent disease prompted Baghdad to extend those curfews into mid-April. Iraq’s position is especially precarious, considering neighboring Iran’s high infection rate and the Iranian government’s negligence in the early weeks of the pandemic, allowing thousands of Iraqis to cross into their nation while publicly denying the magnitude of the outbreak within their borders.
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The threat of Coronavirus in Iraq has prompted the US-led Coalition to suspend joint-training missions with Iraqi security forces, as France announced the withdrawal of its contingent of troops on Wednesday from the beleaguered nation. Although the pandemic has halted the street protest movement, it has not stopped intermittent attacks on joint Iraqi-US bases, with two incidents of Katyusha rocket fire reported in the Baghdad Green Zone and al-Taji base near Baghdad this week. Although neither strike caused any casualties, the ongoing attacks prompted the US State Dept to take the unusual step of publicly criticizing the Iraqi government for failing to do enough to protect allied forces within their country.
The combination of COVID-19 concerns and rocket strikes have underscored the Iraqi parliament’s demand in January for a US withdrawal from Iraq. For its part, the Pentagon has tried to balance its need for cooperation from the Iraqi government in an ongoing campaign to mop-up ISIS remnants with the growing reality that Baghdad is drifting into the Iranian sphere of influence. The early stages of a Coalition redeployment and withdrawal process appear to have begun this week, as between 500-800 US troops vacated Qayyarah air base near Mosul in Ninevah Province, handing over the base and millions of dollars of military hardware to the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF). A Coalition spokesperson announced that some US troops will rotate out of Iraq, while others will be redeployed elsewhere within the country. The transition marks a major milestone, near the former de-facto capital of the defeated Islamic caliphate in Iraq, where a protracted battle was fought with ISIS forces in 2017. The withdrawal comes days after US forces vacated the al-Qaim base along the restive Iraqi-Syrian border, where Iranian-linked militias have been active in recent months.
Meanwhile, the regional government of Kurdistan is continuing its all-out offensive against the spread of Coronavirus in the northern Kurdish-majority provinces, where thousands of Iraqis and Iranians were quarantined earlier this month. The extraordinary measures have helped to minimize the rate of COVID-19 infection in Kurdistan to 121 confirmed, despite the epidemic of over 30,000 cases across the border in Iran.
FAI field teams continue to partner with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and local authorities on the ground in treatment of quarantine patients and prevention training. We are honored to labor side-by-side with our Kurdish neighbors, and we ask our global family and friends to intercede during this time for a divine hedge around our staff, clinics and patients, wisdom for local authorities, and for feet shod with peace for the advancement of Good News in Kurdistan.
Sources:
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/us-forces-leave-mosul-area-for-first-time-since-isis-defeat/
http://www.nrttv.com/EN/News.aspx?id=20331&MapID=2
https://twitter.com/HalabTodayTV/status/1243519397660176384
https://twitter.com/IraqiSpoxMOD/status/1243226721027006464
https://twitter.com/nafisehkBBC/status/1243102909337919488
https://twitter.com/AlainBRK/status/1242916833591791625
https://twitter.com/SkyNewsArabia_B/status/1242532450942750725
https://twitter.com/BaxtiyarGoran/status/1241978555585658880
