Iran stands ready to expand its military and security ties with Iraq, its armed forces chief of staff said Sunday, a week after the exit of US forces from the neighbouring Arab country. General Hassan Firouzabadi hailed the “forced departure” of the US and allied forces that he said “was due to the resistance and determination of the Iraqi people and government,” the state Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
The statements were made in messages Firouzabadi sent to his Iraqi counterpart, Lieutenant General Babaker Zebari, and to Iraq’s acting defence minister, Saadun al-Dulaimi, IRNA said. The departure of the US troops “was due to the resistance and determination of the Iraqi people and government,” he said. “I hope the humiliating failure of the United States after nine years of occupying Iraq will serve as a lesson for them to never think of attacking another country,” he said.
Firouzabadi added that Iran was now “ready to expand its military and security ties with Iraq.” Zebari led a delegation of Iraqi military chiefs to Iran last month to explore greater cooperation between the two defence forces.
Iran not harbouring Al-Qaeda financier SAYS foreign ministry: Iran on Sunday denied that it is harbouring an alleged Al-Qaeda fundraiser who has a $10-million US bounty on his head, with the foreign ministry calling the claim “utterly baseless.”
The US charge that Iran was protecting Syrian-born Ezedin Abdel Aziz Khalil was part of an “inept” attempt to implicate Iran in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said, according to the website of the state broadcaster IRIB.
The US State Department on Thursday said it was offering a $10-million reward for information leading to the arrest of Khalil, whom it described as a “terrorist financier.” Khalil, also known as Yacine al-Suri, was put on a US Treasury Department blacklist in July, when he was described as a high-level Al-Qaeda “facilitator” who operated from inside Iran since 2005 “under an agreement between Al-Qaeda and the Iranian government.”
Iran ‘ready to expand military links with Iraq’
