The Iraqi army has denied rumors of an extension of US troops presence.
A spokesman for the Iraqi Joint Operations Command said that the US military presence in Iraq had not been extended and that the final date for the withdrawal of US troops was December 31 this year.
Following the warning issued yesterday by the Iraqi Resistance Coordination Committee against the US occupiers after the end of this year, the Joint Operations Command in the Iraqi Army issued a statement dismissing any rumors of an extension of the US combat presence in the country by the end of this year. Scheduled, declined.
Brigadier General Tahsin al-Khafaji, spokesman for the Iraqi Army Joint Operations Command, told the official Iraqi News Agency (WAA) on Friday that the talk of extending the withdrawal of US troops was incorrect and inaccurate. “The date of withdrawal of the combat forces is December 31 next year and it has not been changed.”
On July 26, Baghdad and Washington agreed to withdraw US combat troops from Iraq by the end of this year, leaving an unknown number of US troops to advise and train Iraqi forces.
US troops entered Iraq in 2014 at the request of the Iraqi government to fight ISIS, which at the time occupied a third of the country. Under this pretext, the United States sent 3,000 troops to Iraq in the form of an international coalition called ISIL, of which 2,500 were Americans.
Al-Khafaji further explained: “The relationship between the two sides after the withdrawal of combat forces will be an advisory relationship in the fields of training, weapons, intelligence and security against the terrorist organization ISIL.”
Yesterday, Abu Alaa al-Walai, the secretary general of the Books of the Martyrs, announced in a statement that the doors of volunteer recruitment had been opened to join the resistance fighters to fight American forces after the end of this year.
