US troops will not be removed from areas of Iraq that are not completely secure or where there is a high probability that attacks could resume after they leave, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said on Sunday.
In an interview, al-Maliki said he had told US President Barack Obama and other top US officials that any withdrawals “must be done with our approval” and in coordination with the Iraqi government.
“I do not want any withdrawals except in areas considered 100 percent secure and under control,” al-Maliki said during his flight from Australia to Baghdad at the end of a five-day visit.
“Any area where there is a likelihood of a resumption of attacks, withdrawals from there will be postponed,” he said.
The US-Iraq security pact that went into effect on Jan. 1 calls for US combat forces to leave the cities by the end of June in the first step of a plan to remove all US troops from Iraq by the end of 2011. Obama wants to withdraw all combat troops by September next year, leaving behind a residual force of up to 50,000 soldiers to train Iraqi forces and go after al-Qaeda.
Al-Maliki did not specify areas where the removal of US troops might be delayed. But those areas would likely include Mosul, the country’s third largest city, and Diyala Province northeast of Baghdad. Al-Qaeda and other Sunni extremist groups operate in both areas, despite repeated offensives by US and Iraqi forces.
Also Sunday, a senior US officer told reporters that US troops will focus on attacking insurgent supply routes and rural hideouts after combat troops withdraw from Baghdad at the end of June.
Brigadier General Frederick Rudesheim, a deputy commander of US forces in Baghdad, said the shift from the cities to large bases outside will help make the capital safer because US troops can go after militants at the source: the countryside where they plan their attacks and load up on guns and bombs.
Meanwhile, an opinion poll published yesterday shows that for the first time since the 2003 invasion, Iraqis were hopeful about the future and are increasingly preoccupied with conventional worries such as the economy and jobs. But it also showed that Iraqis remain unhappy about the role of foreign powers in their country, notably Iran, the US and Britain.
The survey was undertaken jointly by the BBC, ABC News and Japan’s NHK television last month. A total of 2,228 Iraqis were questioned across all 18 provinces. The margin of error is 2.5 per cent, the BBC said.
The survey is the sixth in a series of surveys since March 2004 and shows a marked overall improvement in perceptions, the BBC said. It showed striking shifts in opinion since the last poll, in March last year.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
‘PLAINLY ERRONEOUS’: The justice department appealed a Trump-appointed judge’s blocking of the release of a report into election interference by the incoming president US Special Counsel Jack Smith, who led the federal cases against US president-elect Donald Trump on charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat and mishandling of classified documents, has resigned after submitting his investigative report on Trump, an expected move that came amid legal wrangling over how much of that document can be made public in the days ahead. The US Department of Justice disclosed Smith’s departure in a footnote of a court filing on Saturday, saying he had resigned one day earlier. The resignation, 10 days before Trump is inaugurated, follows the conclusion of two unsuccessful criminal prosecutions