The Iraqi armed group Kataib Hezbollah has announced a cessation of military activities against the U.S. forces stationed in the region following the attack in northeast Jordan near the border with Syria that killed three American soldiers, an act that the Pentagon has attributed to the Iraqi Kataib Hezbollah.
“In a surprise move, the most powerful Iran-backed militia in Iraq, Kataib Hezbollah, announced on Tuesday the suspension of its military operations against U.S. forces in the region two days after a drone attack killed three U.S. service members and wounded dozens of others.
‘We are announcing the suspension of military and security operations against the occupation forces (U.S. troops) – in order to prevent embarrassment to the Iraqi government’, Kataib Hezbollah said in a statement.
‘We will continue to defend our people in Gaza in other ways, and we recommend to the brave Mujahideen of the Free Hezbollah Brigades to [carry out] passive defense (temporarily) if any hostile American action occurs towards them’.
The group is considered the most powerful armed faction in the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed militias in the country. The U.S. holds Iran broadly responsible for arming and supporting these groups and has specifically singled out Kataib Hezbollah as likely to have carried out the deadly attack on Sunday.
Asked about the statement, Pentagon press secretary Major General Pat Ryder said at a briefing Tuesday, ‘We’ve seen those reports. I don’t have a specific comment to provide other than actions speak louder than words’.
‘I don’t think we could be any more clear that we have called on the Iranian proxy groups to stop their attacks. They have not. And so we will respond in a time and manner of our choosing’, Ryder said.
The U.S. has carried out a series of strikes in Iraq and Syria since the start of the war in Gaza targeting Kataib Hezbollah and other groups in response to attacks on U.S. interests in the region in recent months. Even so, the attacks have persisted. U.S. troops in the Middle East have come under attack approximately 166 times since October, U.S. officials said.
Ryder said he was aware of three attacks since the deadly drone strike that killed three U.S. service members in Jordan.
Kataib Hezbollah also tried to distance Iran from their almost daily attacks in Iraq and Syria since October 17th, saying they have carried out the attacks at their ‘own will, and without any interference from others’.
‘On the contrary, our brothers in the axis – especially in the Islamic Republic – do not know how we work jihad, and they often object to the pressure and escalation against the American occupation forces in Iraq and Syria’, the group added in the statement”. -CNN
While the United States has confirmed there are plans for an attack supposedly in retaliation to the operation that targeted American bases, it appears that, despite the Pentagon’s previous insistence that it has not sought to wage a new full-fledged war in the Middle East, there is no feasible way to respond to the strike that killed U.S. troops in Jordan and avoid further escalation in the region that could trigger unrest across the Arab world.