America abandons old “rules of engagement” in Iraq

On the day that American forces announced that they had targeted a convoy belonging to the Iraqi faction of the “Hezbollah Brigades”, west of Baghdad, they had also struck three sites of groups affiliated with the so-called “Islamic Resistance in Iraq” and had clashed, in a rare case, on Thursday, with armed men near one of the bases. The military, without announcing it, at a time when sources say that the US Army field command “has changed its method of dealing with hostile attacks and has abandoned the old rules of engagement”.

American forces are expected to move into the phase of “direct and rapid response” to attacks by pro-Iranian factions, after relatively abandoning the “political considerations” they had for the government of Prime Minister Muhammad Shiaa Al-Sudani, they say the sources.

Last Tuesday, an American drone hit a convoy belonging to the Iraqi faction of the “Hezbollah Brigades” in the city of Abu Ghraib, killing one person.

Asharq Al-Awsat learned from informed sources that the US military, before and during the Abu Ghraib attack, carried out three more rocket attacks against two groups affiliated with the Hezbollah Brigades in the areas of the highway and kilometer 35, to the west of Ramadi, and a group affiliated with the Hezbollah “Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq” Brigades in the city of Rathar, west of Baghdad.

One day after the “Jurf al-Sakhar” attack, eyewitnesses and Iraqi officials claimed that an attack drone flew over the main headquarters of the Popular Mobilization Forces near the Iraqi Prime Minister’s house, inside the Zone Green, while law enforcement did. He does not issue any clarification regarding the movement of the unknown drone, but the sources “are almost sure that it is an American drone.

The four attacks came a day before another attack that targeted a faction site in the city of Jurf al-Sakhar, south of Baghdad, indicating an unusual pattern in Americans’ dealings with armed factions .

Last week, the press reported the US Department of Defense’s dissatisfaction with the “restricted orders” issued by the White House regarding the response to pro-Iranian factions, which are carrying out major attacks against US forces in Iraq and Syria.

American officials say American and international forces, which form the international coalition to fight the remnants of ISIS, have been targeted more than 60 times in Iraq and Syria since October 17.

An American “position assessment.”

American diplomats and Iraqi officials, who spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat this week, said that “the assessment of the situation” in Iraq “is going in a completely different way,” after some faction attacks recorded direct hits with devastating firepower on the sites. occupied by the Americans in Iraq, including 3 raids, which were “very thorough”, as they said.

The Americans are still analyzing the nature and pattern of the attacks, which for weeks had limited impact, but suddenly escalated for a limited period into more powerful and precise attacks.

The US Department of Defense (the Pentagon) declared last Tuesday, a few hours before the American response to Abu Ghraib, that “Iran-backed militants attacked Ain al-Asad air base in Iraq with a short-range ballistic missile radius”. According to the sources, “an in-depth analysis of the situation in Iraq conducted by the Pentagon led to granting permission to the forces on the ground to respond to the attacks and to adopt a more effective and deterrent plan”.

Last month, Asharq Al-Awsat revealed that the Americans were maintaining the rules of engagement in Iraq, even in light of attacks launched by the factions, while a leading American official confirmed that Washington was eager to “perpetuate political stability in Iraq and cooperate with the Sudanese government”. But he indicated at the time that escalating attacks would not keep the situation as it is.

The sources say: “The Americans quickly translated their assessment of the new situation by carrying out pre-emptive operations against faction attacks before they occurred, targeting convoys carrying equipment and weapons, and ambushing factions in locations close to military zones.” basics.”

The sources confirmed that, in the context of this rapid transformation, the Americans clashed on Thursday with armed men from the “Asaib Ahl al-Haq” faction near the “Ain al-Assad” base in the west of the country, killing at least one person and kidnap other armed men.

Shocking security telegrams

Apparently, the Americans have abandoned the “political considerations” they took into consideration with the Iraqi government, after local parties failed to curb the attacks of the Iraqi factions.

An Iraqi official, who asked to remain anonymous, said the Iraqi government recently received “security cables from the Americans about the attacks before they occurred, which included information about the time and location of the attack and the individual who carried it out.” executed”.

The official described these cables as an embarrassing political message and said the information they contained was “surprising and shocking (…) They knew everything, everywhere.”

The Iraqi government considered the airstrikes carried out by the United States against targets of Iraqi armed factions loyal to Iran on its territory, “a dangerous escalation and a violation of Iraqi sovereignty”, according to Bassem Al-Awadi, spokesperson for the Iraqi government.

Politically, the Shia “coordination framework” tried to hold the stick after the recent American attacks, without attacking the Americans, in a statement in which it denounced the attacks against groups affiliated with the factions and also called on the international coalition to take targeting faction-affiliated groups. “adhering to specified tasks in accordance with Iraqi laws and that any action not related to the fight against ISIS is a dangerous and condemnable transgression.”

But the spokesman for the Hezbollah Brigades in Iraq, Muhammad Mohie, pledged to continue targeting American forces, expanding their reach and perhaps using new weapons. Akram Al-Kaabi, an official of the Al-Nujaba Movement, which is part of the Islamic resistance factions in Iraq, called for “declaring war on America and removing it in humiliation from Iraq,” and said in a statement: “We do not There’s no excuse for anyone after today.”