In yet another manifestation of Washington’s scandalous complicity with remnants of the Daesh terrorist group in Iraq, new footage has emerged apparently showing the transfer of the members of the Takfiri terror outfit by US helicopters across certain regions in the Arab country.
The video, which went viral in Iraqi media on Thursday, vividly showed Washington’s role in moving Daesh terrorists by US Army CH-47 Chinook helicopters inside Iraq.
An informed source recently leaked information to the Iraqi media that US Chinook helicopters are constantly moving “unknown and suspicious” elements inside the Arab country.
The source told Baghdad Al-Yaum that the observation of US moves in Iraq over the past five days showed “two Daesh transfers by US helicopters” in Hamrin Mountains near the city of Baquba, the capital of Iraq’s eastern province of Diyala, and around Canaan Desert, 30 kilometers east of Baquba, as part of a “highly confidential operation.”
Sabereen News, a Telegram news channel associated with Iraqi anti-terror Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) – better known by the Arabic name Hashd al-Sha’abi – released on Thursday a video of two American helicopters in an area of Iraq’s northern province of Kirkuk while moving a number of terrorists.
Sabereen said the video showed American AUG-122 helicopters transferring “three Daesh elements” from the scene of clashes with Iraqi army forces near the village of Birmehidi in Kirkuk Province.
The US embassy in Baghdad has yet to comment on the video or the role of US forces in supporting terrorists in Iraq.
Iraqi anti-terror groups have repeatedly released footage of such moves and duplicitous acts by American forces, who have over the past two decades launched a military campaign under the pretext of countering terrorism across the Arab country.
Qassem al-Kuraiti, a PMU leader, told Arabic-language al-Ahad television network last year that thermal cameras installed in the country’s central province of Salahuddin had recorded US military helicopters transferring Daesh terrorists to various locations across the country.
Iraq declared victory over Daesh in December 2017 after a three-year counter-terrorism military campaign, which also had the support of neighboring Iran.
The terror outfit’s remnants, though, keep staging sporadic attacks across Iraq, attempting to regroup and unleash fresh violence.
Daesh has intensified its terrorist attacks in Iraq since January 2020, when the United States assassinated top Iranian anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani and PMU’s deputy commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis near Baghdad International Airport.
Anti-US sentiments sharply increased in Iraq in the aftermath of the assassination, prompting Iraqi lawmakers to pass a bill – only two days after the terrorist attack – that required the Baghdad government to end the presence of all foreign military forces led by Washington.
The US was finally forced to end its “combat mission” in Iraq by the end of 2021, but Iraqi resistance groups say the Pentagon’s so-called advisory role has to end as well.