Alwaght- A senior commander of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) has demanded for the immediate withdrawal of US troops from the country after the defeat of ISIS Takfiri terrorist group.
"To the US secretary of state, your military forces must prepare now to get out of our homeland Iraq immediately and without delay once the ISIS elimination excuse is over," Qais al-Khaz’ali, the secretary general of the League of Righteous, an Iraqi armed group fighting ISIS as part of PMF, known in Arabic as Hashd al-Sha’abi, wrote on his Twitter page.
The statement came after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a Sunday joint press conference with his Saudi counterpart Adel al-Jubeir in Riyadh that Iran and all other countries currently helping Iraq in its fight against the ISIS terrorist group needed to leave the Arab country now that the battle was drawing to a close.
A day later, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's media office criticized Tillerson’s meddlesome comments, saying, “No party has the right to interfere in Iraqi matters.”
PMF is an Iraqi state-sponsored umbrella organization composed of some 40 groups. The force reportedly numbers more than 100,000, mainly Shiite Muslim fighters. Iraqi authorities say there are between 25,000 and 30,000 Sunni tribal fighters within its ranks in addition to Kurdish Izadi and Christian units.
