The Iranian-backed militias in Iraq are ending the truce that was meant to give the Iraqi government time to negotiate the withdrawal of US troops from the country, a high-ranking member of one of the groups told The National on Tuesday.
“The resistance factions in Iraq ended this truce and therefore all options are available to the resistance forces to target all US bases inside Iraq,” Haider Al Lami, a member of the political council of Al Nujaba Movement in Iraq, told the news website.
Al Lami added there was “procrastination and stalling” from the American side during talks with the Iraqi government on the withdrawal of troops.
Calls for an end to the truce were raised after at least four members of the Popular Mobilization Forces's 47th Brigade were killed in a US strike on a base in Babil province, south of Baghdad, on July 30.
Less than a week later, rockets hit the Ain Al Asad airbase in western Iraq which houses US troops, injuring at least five American personnel, in an attack claimed by a group called The Revolutionaries.
The Ain al-Asad base had come under attack by two armed drones in mid-July as well, in what was the first attack against US forces in Iraq since early February, when Iranian-backed groups in Iraq announced they would stop their attacks against US troops.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said following the late July attack on Ain al-Asad that the United States will not tolerate attacks on American troops in the Middle East.
"Make no mistake, the United States will not tolerate attacks on our personnel in the region," Austin told a news conference in Annapolis.
Al Lami confirmed on Tuesday that The Revolutionaries are part of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an alliance that has claimed a number of attacks on US personnel and assets in Iraq since the start of the war in Gaza last October.
“There will be a response in the coming days that could target more than one place, not necessarily in Iraq, Syria and the Zionist entity (Israel),” Lami told The National.
The pro-Iranian militias have claimed some rocket attacks that have targeted Israel in recent months.