Thursday, March 28, 2024

Baghdad

Iraqi govt denies arrival of U.S. troops on mission to secure elections

 Iraqi govt denies arrival of U.S. troops on mission to secure elections

U.S. soldiers deployed in Iraq

U.S. soldiers deployed in Iraq

Baghdad (Iraqinews.com) – The Iraqi government denied on Monday arrival of U.S. forces in Iraq to secure parliamentary elections in three governorates, stressing that the polls will be only secured by Iraq’s police and army.

In exclusive statements to Baghdad Today news website, Saad al-Hadithi, a spokesman of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s media office, termed as “baseless” all reports about deployment of U.S. forces in Iraqi to secure polling stations, confirming that neither U.S. nor any other country will take part in securing the polls.

However, Hadithi explained that experts and trainers from “the U.S. and other countries are now stationed at military bases and camps in Iraq to train Iraqi troops and provide advice for them,” but they have no any military presence on the ground and do no take part in any combat mission.

Earlier, the London-based Al-Arab daily has uncovered a proposal put forward by the U.S. army to let American soldiers secure parliamentary and provincial elections, slated for May, just in three Sunni-dominated governorates, namely Nineveh, Salahuddin and Anbar.

According to the paper, the U.S. military made this request as it “fears that the current situation in Anbar and Mosul might affect the representation of Sunni groups in the parliament and government.”

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