Iraq’s Volunteer Forces Vow to Strike at Turkish Troops

The Middle-East region is on the brink of another war as Turkey refrains from pulling back its expeditionary troops from Northern Iraq and as Hashd al-Shaabi volunteer forces pledged on Tuesday to launch an offensive on the Turkish army units that have stationed near Mosul in Nineveh province for the last few days.

The Hashd al-Shaabi’s reaction came after Turkey dispatched a battalion comprising 130 soldiers to an area near the city of Mosul in Nineveh province on the pretext of providing military training to the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters.

“If the government of Baghdad does not take the needed action to drive out the Turkish troops, we will act ourselves,” the Arabic-language Sumeria news quoted the Iraqi volunteer forces’ statement as warning on Tuesday.

The Iraqi volunteer forces reiterated that the presence of foreign forces in Iraq is regarded as an act of aggression, and said the Iraqi government should take the necessary measures to expel the Turkish troops and “if these forces do not leave Iraq, they will see the harsh reaction of the Iraqi popular forces”.

Head of Iraq’s Badr Organization Hadi al-Ameri also warned on Monday that his forces are fully prepared to launch strikes at the US military bases and Turkish troops in Iraq.

“We will target all the military bases of the US in Iraq,” the Arabic-language al-Mosle news website quoted al-Ameri as saying in reaction to the US interferences in Iraq.

He, meantime, pointed to Turkey’s interferences in Iraq, and said, “The Turkish government should know that we will destroy all its tanks if it does not withdraw from the city of Mosul.”

On Sunday, another senior commander of Iraq’s volunteer forces lashed out at the US for planning to send special forces to Northern Iraq, and said that Washington is in pursuit of specific political incentives through such measures.

“The recent statements of US Secretary of Defense about dispatch of elite forces to Northern Iraq on the pretext of fighting the ISIL is aimed at eliminating the quadrilateral coalition of Iran, Russia, Syria and Iraq from the battle against the ISIL,” Spokesman of Iraq’s Volunteer Forces (Hashd al-Shaabi) Karim al-Nouri told FNA.

Al-Nouri’s remarks came after US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced that Washington will send its special forces to Iraq to fight against the ISIL Takfiri terrorists.

Al-Nouri said that Carter’s statements come at a time when the ISIL is collapsing and it is strange because the Iraqi volunteer forces can terminate the ISIL.

“When the ISIL was very close to Baghdad none of the western countries did anything to prevent the terrorist group; and now that they claim to be willing to take action against the Takfiri terrorist group, they should thus be after some ill-intentions,” he added.

The Iraqi volunteer forces spokesman underlined that the quadrilateral coalition (Russia, Iran, Iraq and Syria) will defeat the ISIL without the US help.

On Saturday, Iraq’s Hashd al-Shaabi volunteer forces warned that they will strike at Ankara’s interests in retaliation for the Turkish army’s illegal border crossing and deployment in Iraq’s Northern Nineveh province.

In reaction to Turkey’s unsolicited dispatch of forces to Iraq, a battalion of Iraq’s volunteer forces threatened that they will target the Turkish government’s interests on Iraq’s soil.