Pro-Iran factions’ truce with US in Iraq ‘short-term’: Lawmaker

Pro-Iran factions in Iraq will cease targeting US troops but their proposed truce is only temporary and depends on Washington completing a full military withdrawal by year-end, a key lawmaker said. About 90 rocket attacks have targeted US interests in Iraq since January, including forces housed in Iraqi bases and its embassy in Baghdad’s high-security Green Zone, with several claimed by pro-Iran factions. The most prominent pro-Iran group declared a ceasefire from Sunday. “The truce isn’t open-ended,” Ahmed al-Assadi, a lawmaker representing the political arm of pro-Iran armed coalition Hashd al-Shaabi, told AFP news agency late Wednesday. “In my estimation, at its earliest, it could end around the US elections,” scheduled to take place on November 3, “or it could last until the end of the year,” he added. In early January, Iraq’s parliament voted to expel American soldiers from its soil two days after a US drone strike killed top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and his Iraqi lieutenant Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. “A truce lasting longer than the end of the year doesn’t make much sense. We’re only giving the government more time to negotiate the withdrawal,” Assadi added. Fragile truce The Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitaries were established in 2014 from mostly-Shia militia and volunteers to fight the armed group ISIL (ISIS). Hashd has formally been part of Iraq’s armed forces since then, holding political representation in parliament, but it also spawned several armed groups ideologically affiliated with it. Kataib Hezbollah, the most pro-Iran armed faction in the country, has consistently been blamed by Washington for the rocket attacks. style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; top: 0; bottom: 0; right: 0; left: 0;">