Iran, US warned against involving Iraq in conflict

Baghdad, Dec 26 : Prominent Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sayyid Muhammad al-Sadr has warned Iran and the US against involving Baghdad in their conflict.
“Iraq has become a victim to the US-Iranian conflict and has been greatly affected as if it is an arena for their conflicts,” Xinhua news agency quoted al-Sadr as saying in a statement posted on Twitter on Friday.
“Therefore, I call on Iran to distance Iraq from its conflict, and I warn the (US) occupier against continuing its conflict… “Iraq and the Iraqis are not a party to the conflict,” he added.
Baghdad-Washington relations have been strained since January 3 when an American drone struck a convoy at the Baghdad airport, killing Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy chief of Iraq’s paramilitary Hashd Shaabi forces.
Two days after the drone attack, the Iraqi parliament passed a resolution that requires the government to end the presence of foreign forces in the country.