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October 24th, 2017 
Awake Goy 
nsnbc : Qais al-Khazali, the powerful leader of a Shiite group within Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces a.k.a. Hashd al-Shaabi, has asked U.S. Secretay of State Rex Tillerson to prepare to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq after Tillerson said “Iranian militia” in Iraq should go home as the war on ISIS is about to end in the country.
Qais al-Khazali is the head of the Iranian-funded, Shiite Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, one of the main constituents of the so-called Popular Mobilization Forces or Hashd al-Shaabi. Monday night al-Khazali Tweeted that US forces who are now in Iraq as part of the Global Coalition against ISIS must prepare to go home. The Tweet, here translated from Arabic, read:
“To the US Secretary of State: your armed forces have to prepare from this point immediately and without any delay to leave our homeland Iraq after the end of the ISIS-presence excuse.”
It is the latest response from the Hashd al-Shaabi and the Iraqi government following Tillerson’s remark on Sunday that it was time for foreign fighters, including Iranian elements of the Hashd al-Shaabi, to leave Iraq.
Ahmad al-Asadi, Hashd spokesperson, asked for an apology while calling the US remark unacceptable and baseless. Another Hashd commander, Hadi al-Amri, urged Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi not to meet with Tillerson unless the American first issued an apology. Abadi and Tillerson met in Baghdad nonetheless, their second meeting in two days.
Abadi told Tillerson that the Iranian-backed Hashd al-Shaabi is an official institution under Iraqi command and all its fighters are Iraqi. “We have to encourage the Hashd because they will become the hope for the country and the region,” Abadi was quoted as telling Tillerson Monday evening. It is worth noting that al-Abadi has come under immense domestic pressure and pressure from Iran.
Rex Tillerson (archives)
The row reveals how much the regional and geopolitical nerves passing through the region have been exposed since ISIS – with help from networks in Turkey and the USA, according to a source close to Lebanese PM Saad Hariri – invaded large swathes of Iraq.
The subsequent flaring up of tensions between Kurds and the governments of Iraq and Iran, the unwanted division of Iraq’s Yezidi who in they eyes of many have been forces to chose between Baghdad and Erbil while being let down and threatened by both, all show how volatile the region has become.
And then, of course, there is the oil, and especially the rich oil fields in Kirkuk. One could summarize the oil issue in one sentence. The Sunni lost it, the Kurds want it, and the Shia Iranians and by extension of Iran control it, and that’s not exactly a scenario that Washington perceives as a stable environment for its energy security and national security.
CH/L – nsnbc 24.10.2017
Source Article from https://nsnbc.me/2017/10/24/iraqi-shia-hashd-al-shaabi-leader-asked-u-s-to-prepare-to-withdraw-troops-from-iraq/
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