{"id":1874,"date":"2016-03-28T18:49:43","date_gmt":"2016-03-28T23:49:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/?p=1874"},"modified":"2016-03-28T19:24:42","modified_gmt":"2016-03-29T00:24:42","slug":"iran-backed-shia-militia-says-it-will-fight-us-marines-deployed-to-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/1874\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran-backed Shia militia says it will fight US Marines deployed to Iraq"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Telegraph<\/span><\/h6>\n

Group fighting alongside Iraqi army says US must withdraw Marines or the militia will “deal” with them as an occupying foreign force<\/h4>\n
\"<\/a>

A file photo of Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia fighters from the south of Iraq Photo: REUTERS\/Youssef Boudlal, File<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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One of the deadliest Iranian-backed militias in Iraq has threatened to attack US troops deployed fighting the Islamic State (Isil) and “deal” with them as occupying forces.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia, known as the League of the Righteous<\/a>, issued the warning after it emerged the US has deployed several hundred marines to aid Iraqi forces as they try to retake Mosul.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The US and the Shia militia are in theory on the same side against Isil<\/a> and the threat underscores the complex web of alliances and antagonism among the forces fighting the jihadist movement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“If the US administration doesn’t withdraw its forces immediately, we will deal with them as forces of occupation,” the League said on its TV channel, al-Ahd.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“The forces of occupation are making a new suspicious attempt to restore their presence in the country under the pretext of fighting their own creation, Daesh,” the group said, using another name for Isil.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It is not clear if the League would actually follow through but the group played a major role in fighting Western forces after the US-led invasion in 2003 and is a powerful force within Iraq today.<\/p>\n

The League was responsible for the kidnapping in May 2007 of British computer expert Peter Moore<\/a> and his four bodyguards, in what turned out to be one of the worst kidnap crises in modern British history.<\/p>\n

Mr Moore was eventually released in December 2009, while his four bodyguards – Jason Creswell, Jason Swindlehurst, Alec MacLachlan, and Alan McMenemy – were killed in captivity.<\/p>\n

Its fighters also shot down a British Lynx helicopter in Basra in 2006, killing five UK military personnel.<\/p>\n

The militia is backed by Iran and operates under the supervision of Qassem Suleimani, a Revolutionary Guard general in charge of most of Iran’s expeditionary missions in Syria and across the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Members of the League have fought Isil in Iraq but also sent troops into Syria to fight alongside Hizbollah and the Assad regime against the Syrian opposition.<\/p>\n

Between 2006 and 2011, the group claimed responsibility for over 6,000 attacks on US forces, according to a report by the Institute for the Study of War<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The presence of US Marines in northern Iraq emerged only after a member of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit was killed by a rocket attack on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Staff Sergeant Louis Cardin was part of a force deployed to provide artillery support for Iraqi troops ahead of an operation to retake Mosul, according to CNN.<\/p>\n

Mosul is the second largest city in Iraq and has been held by Isil since the summer of 2014.<\/p>\n

The Iranian-backed Shia militias are watched warily by the US in Iraq.<\/p>\n

They have repeatedly proved themselves to be more reliable fighters against Isil than the Iraqi military, which collapsed in the face of a jihadist offensive two years ago.<\/p>\n

However, many of them are loyal to Tehran before Baghdad and their violence against Iraqis Sunnis has helped inflame sectarian tensions in Iraq.<\/p>\n

By: The Telegraph<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Telegraph Group fighting alongside Iraqi army says US must withdraw Marines or the militia will “deal” with them as an occupying foreign force One […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1875,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-terrorism-fundamentalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1874"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1877,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1874\/revisions\/1877"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}