Iraq's Kataib Hezbollah announces suspension of attacks against US forces

Adam Lucente

Jan 30, 2024

A man lifts a placard depicting slain Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani (L) and Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, as fighters bearing flags of Iraq and paramilitary groups, including al-Nujaba and Kataib Hezbollah, march during a funeral in Baghdad for five militants killed a day earlier in a US strike in northern Iraq, on December 4, 2023. Dozens of mourners gathered on December 4 for the funeral of the five militants killed the previous day near Kirkuk in what a US military official described as a "s — A man lifts a placard depicting slain Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani (L) and Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, as fighters bearing flags of Iraq and paramilitary groups, including al-Nujaba and Kataib Hezbollah, march during a funeral in Baghdad for five militants killed a day earlier in a US strike in northern Iraq, on Dec. 4, 2023. — AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP via Getty Images

عربي
简体中文

Iraq's pro-Iranian militia Kataib Hezbollah announced on Tuesday a suspension of attacks targeting US forces, a move that followed a drone strike in Jordan that killed 3 US troops and was widely blamed on the group.

In a statement, the group said attacks on the “occupation forces” are suspended in order to avoid “embarrassment for the Iraqi government.”

“We will continue to defend our people in Gaza through other means,” the group’s Secretary General Abu Hussein al-Hamidawi said in the statement carried by Sabereen News, an outlet affiliated with Iran-backed militias in Iraq.

Hamidawi added that Kataib Hezbollah would temporarily engage in “passive defense” in response to any potential US action against the group. Kataib Hezbollah is a Shiite Islamist militia and one of the most prominent Iran-backed groups in Iraq.