Ali Jawad
03 January 2021•Update: 03 January 2021
BAGHDAD, Iraq
Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah militia pledged not to attack the US Embassy in Iraq on Sunday, on the first anniversary of the killing of top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in a US drone airstrike.
"We will neither enter the embassy of evil (the US Embassy) nor overthrow this government... there is still time,” the group’s secretary-general, Abu Hussein al-Hamidawi, said in a statement.
The pledge by the pro-Iran group comes amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington on the first anniversary of Soleimani’s assassination. The US has vowed to retaliate any attack by pro-Iran groups on US forces or interests in Iraq.
Soleimani, along with Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the leader of Hashd al-Shaabi militia, was killed in a US airstrike outside the Baghdad airport in Iraq last year.
Meanwhile, former Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi warned against the consequences of escalation in the region.
“Today marks the 1st anniversary of the bloody airport incident, in which leaders who fought with us to defeat Daesh/ISIS were martyred, Iraq’s sovereignty was violated and its security was breached,” al-Abadi said on Twitter.
“The escalation that we have always warned of would drive Iraq and the region into a devastating conflict, which can be overcome by adhering to wisdom, protecting the country’s sovereignty and interests, as well as adhering to state frameworks.”
*Ahmed Asmar contributed to this report from Ankara
