MEHR News Agency:

The military convoy belonging to the international coalition was targeted in Baghdad.

This was the third US military convoy targeted in Iraq in one single day on Sunday.

On Sunday morning, another US convoy was targeted with four hand-made bombs on the road between Al-Hilla to Al-Diwaniyah in Qadisiyah province. A second convoy was also attacked in Anbar province in western Iraq in the afternoon.

The attacks on the occupying US troops in Iraq have intensified across Iraq recently. However, the Americans continue to ignore a piece of legislation approved by the Iraqi parliament that calls on foreign troops to leave the country as soon as possible.

See also: In 2022, Iraq Expected To Struggle For Sovereignty Amid Tug Of War

Arab News:

Iraq has paid its last war reparations to Kuwait more than 30 years since the invasion of the Gulf country by former autocrat Saddam Hussein, officials said on Thursday.

On Aug. 2, 1990, Hussein ordered his army to invade Kuwait and seize what he described as “Iraq’s 19th province,” before being pushed back seven months later by a US-led coalition.

“Iraq has closed the file of the Kuwait war reparations, having paid the last of its dues,” Mozher Saleh, the prime minister’s economic adviser, was quoted as saying by the official Iraqi News Agency.

In total, Iraq has paid $52.4 billion in reparations, he said. “This is not a small amount,” he added. “The sum would have been enough to construct an electricity network that would have served Iraq for many years.”

MEHR News Agency:

Another American logistic convoy was targetted on Tuesday in Basrah city of Iraq, Baghdad Al-Youm reported.

No group has claimed responsibility for targeting the convoy so far, according to the report.

Recently, several roadside bombs have exploded in the path of US logistics convoys in the Dhi Qar and Anbar provinces of Iraq.

Meanwhile, in recent months, convoys carrying logistics equipment for US troops stationed at various military bases in Iraq have been repeatedly targeted by roadside bombs.

Many Iraqi groups consider the US forces present in the country as occupiers and emphasize the immediate withdrawal of these forces from their territory.

Kurdistan 24:

The so-called “Fateh Khaybar Brigade” on Sunday issued a statement declaring that it will start targeting US forces in Iraq with “painful” strikes.

“The American enemy, their allies, and agents don’t understand the language of dialogue and peace,” read the brigade’s statement, which was published on the Altahreer News website.

It went on to declare that force is therefore “the only way to deal with them.”

The Jerusalem Post:

Two rockets were fired towards the Green Zone where the US embassy is located in Baghdad on Saturday night, according to Iraq’s Security Media Cell.

The C-RAM defense system was activated to intercept the rocket fire. One rocket was intercepted, while a second rocket fell near the Grand Festivities Square near the Green Zone, causing damage to two civilian vehicles.

No group has yet taken responsibility for the rocket attack.

See also: The End Of The US Combat Mission In Iraq: A Meaningful Change?

La Prensa Latina:

In December 2008, Muntadhar al Zaidi became famous overnight when he hurled his shoes at then-President George W. Bush, to protest the United States invasion of Iraq.

Ten years after the withdrawal of US troops, the journalist told Efe in an interview that the occupation is far from over and that “the US continues to occupy Iraq,” politically speaking.

“The US Embassy is the one that dominates many sectors of the State and important decisions, from the formation of the Government to the decisions of Parliament,” he added in an interview with Efe in the Iraqi capital.

He is of course correct.

IQNA:

Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen satellite television channel spoke to Nasr al-Shammari, the spokesman of the al-Nujaba Islamic Resistance Movement, via live television after covering the speech by Shaykh Akram al-Kaabi, the secretary-general of the movement, to a number of commanders of the Iraqi Resistance.

Regarding the remarks of Iraq’s National Security Adviser on the end of the American combat mission in Iraq, al-Shammari said, “Qasim al-Araji’s brother is a respected figure, and we appreciate his stance, especially his support for the Resistance but there are contradictions and ambiguities in this.”

He went on to recall the claims of each of the previous administrations that American combat troops were not present on Iraqi soil, “On the other hand, those at the top of the American political pyramid insist that by spending billions of dollars, they will establish and maintain a military base on Iraqi soil to counter our neighbours, who are threatening its interests in the region.”

The official spokesman of the al-Nujaba Islamic Resistance Movement asked, “What does it mean to end the American combat mission? And when did they have a combat mission in Iraq?” and added, “The Iraqi government, which has claimed since 2014 that there is no foreign combat force here and that the American presence is limited to air support, advisory assistance and logistics!”

Al-Shammari emphasized the lack of confidence in any of the promises and commitments of the United States, “We are convinced that the United States will not leave Iraq, and all these discussions are just a change of title. Their goal is to keep the same forces with the same dirty agenda and in the same bases.”

The Biden Administration’s Obama-Biden Administration-style phony withdrawal from Iraq is not fooling anyone. Operation Iraq Freedom will never end.

See also:
–US logistics convoy targeted in Al Diwaniyah of Iraq
–US Mideast Military Chief: Attacks By Iran-Backed Militias ‘May Provoke A Response’

Al Jazeera:

United States-led forces have ended their combat mission in Iraq, senior US and Iraqi officials said, as the coalition transitions to an advisory role assisting Iraqi forces.

Qassim al-Araji, Iraq’s national security adviser, said on Thursday that a final round of technical talks to formally end the US-led combat mission, which was tasked with rooting out ISIL (ISIS) in the country, had concluded.

A phony withdrawal.

See also: General Says US Troops To Remain In Iraq

Politico:

Tim Kaine and Todd Young were preparing to celebrate a historic victory this month: repealing two outdated war authorizations.

But the Virginina Democrat and the Indiana Republican learned this week that their legislation to scrap the 1991 and 2002 Iraq war authorizations has become a casualty of the Senate’s year-end scramble to pass the annual defense policy bill, lift the debt ceiling and approve President Joe Biden’s social spending plan.

CGTN:

On November 24, Tahseen al-Khafaji, spokesman of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command, said the foreign combat forces would leave Iraq within 15 days, except for some advisers who will stay to support the Iraqi forces.

“Ending the presence of the foreign forces is proceeding according to the plan, and there is no military base for them except for limited presence in Ayn al-Asad Air Base in the western province of Anbar,” al-Khafaji said.

On January 5, 2020, the Iraqi parliament passed a resolution requiring the government to end the presence of foreign forces in the country.

In July this year, the United States and Iraq held a session of strategic dialogue, during which the two countries agreed on withdrawing all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by December 31.

There is a profound difference between ending “the presence of foreign forces” and ending the presence of “foreign combat forces.” This is a phony withdrawal. We will continue to keep thousands of troops in Iraq, where we never had any legitimate business, and those troops will absolutely be capable of “combat.” If the Iraqis tell us to withdraw completely, then we will do another Operation Timber Sycamore, create another Salafist Caliphate, and watch it overrun Iraq until the Iraqis invite us back again.

See also: ‘Fallujah Land’: Iraq’s Anbar Province Rebuilds After Isis

The Washington Post:

Under legislation being put together in fits and starts, Biden could be in a position to cancel the two-decades-old congressional measure that provided the March 2003 invasion’s legal rationale, the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) lawmakers adopted in October 2002.

Doing so will require the bitterly divided Congress to do its part by getting the proposal to his desk, so don’t bet the cryptocurrency farm just yet. But for the first time since 9/11, a president may actually take concrete steps to rein in, not expand, executive branch war-making powers.

We are keeping thousands of troops in Iraq. This is another Obama-Biden Administration-style phony “withdrawal” in which we pretend like we got everyone out while remaining firmly entrenched in this country where our military never had any legitimate business. If the Iraqis want to play hardball and tell us to leave, then we will just do another Operation Timber Sycamore to create another Salafist Caliphate to overrun their country again until they beg us to come back again.

See also:
–Iraqis Sceptical About Real Pullout Of US Forces From Iraq
–US Logistics Convoy Targeted In Iraq’s Babylon Prov.

Reuters:

Iraq released final results on Tuesday from last month’s general election, confirming populist Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s movement’s victoryas the biggest bloc, with 73 seats in the fractious 329-seat house.

The Taqaddum Party, which draws support from minority Sunni Muslims, won 37 seats. Former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law group won 33 seats, and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) secured 31, according to the results cited by state media.

The results were broadly in line with preliminary figures released in the days after the Oct. 10 election, and unlikely to alter calculations much as politicians negotiate on the makeup of a new government. Pro-Iran groups who performed poorly have refused to accept the results.

See also: Moqtada Sadr: Iraq’s Political, Religious Force

Newsweek:

As Iraqi paramilitary groups vowed to enforce a year’s-end deadline for the withdrawal of the U.S. military from their country, one influential faction has told Newsweek that Iraq’s militias managed to force U.S. troops out a decade before the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan, and that such success could soon be replicated in Iraq.

“The Iraqi resistance was earlier than the Afghans in forcing the United States to withdraw from Iraq in 2011,” Nasr al-Shammary, spokesperson for the Hezbollah al-Nujaba Movement, told Newsweek, “and today the Iraqi resistance is stronger and more numerous.”

The resistance, he argued, “has the ability to confront, prolong, and insist on expelling any foreign forces from Iraqi soil.”

NDTV:

“The United States will uphold the commitments it made during the July 2021 US-Iraq Strategic Dialogue, including that there will be no US forces with a combat role by the end of the year,” the Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said on Saturday.

This statement was made after US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met on November 20 with Minister Jumah Inad Sadun al-Jaburi, Iraq’s Minister of Defense, in Manama, Bahrain, during the annual Manama Dialogue.

Austin further confirmed to the Iraqi defence minister that American forces will remain in Iraq at the invitation of the Iraqi government to support the country’s security forces, the statement said.

See also: Iraq Denies Extending Date For US Troop Withdrawal

Newsweek:

A group of Iraqi militias has issued a warning that they were prepared to take up arms against the U.S. military presence in Iraq if U.S. troops stayed in the country past the upcoming year’s end deadline for combat operations revealed over the summer by President Joe Biden.

In a statement issued Friday and shared with Newsweek, the Iraqi Resistance Coordination Commission, an umbrella of paramilitary groups aligned with the pro-Iran Axis of Resistance opposed to the U.S. footprint in the region, said its members were “closely monitoring the extent of commitment to the outcomes of the so-called strategic dialogue round” that took place between Washington and Baghdad in July.

The message went on to say that the council “did not believe in the seriousness of the occupation and its commitment” to withdrawing combat troops from Iraq according to the established timeline, but was itself “committed to giving the Iraqi negotiator an opportunity to expel the American occupation from our pure land through diplomatic means.”

Washington Examiner:

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer set up a vote this week to advance a major defense funding bill and said it will include a provision to repeal decades-old Iraq war powers.

The New York Democrat filed cloture on the National Defense Authorization Act, which sets defense spending levels for the next fiscal year. He established a Wednesday vote that will require 60 votes to start debate.