https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-security-parliament/iraq-parliament-to-convene-amid-calls-to-expel-us-troops-idUSKBN1Z407Z

http://archive.is/0GLZG

Iraq parliament to convene amid calls to expel U.S. troops

Iraqi lawmakers said they would use a special parliamentary session on Sunday to push for a vote on a resolution requiring the government to ask Washington to withdraw U.S. troops from the country.

The session was called after a U.S. drone strike on Friday on a convoy at Baghdad airport that killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

Since the killings, rival Shi’ite political leaders have called for U.S. troops to be expelled from Iraq in an unusual show of unity among factions that have squabbled for months.

“There is no need for the presence of American forces after defeating Daesh (Islamic State),” said Ammar al-Shibli, a Shi’ite lawmaker and member of the parliamentary legal committee.

“We have our own armed forces which are capable of protecting the country,” he told Reuters.

Despite decades of enmity between Iran and the United States, Iran-backed militia and U.S. troops fought side by side during Iraq’s 2014-2017 war against Islamic State militants.

Around 5,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq, most of them in an advisory capacity.

If Iraq wants them to leave, parliament needs to pass a resolution obliging the government to ask the United States to pull them out.

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