SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Iran has denied any involvement in recent attacks against bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq, but also denounced U.S. strikes against militia groups in the country.
Iranian Ambassador to the U.N. Majid Takht-Ravanchi rejected claims by the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nation who accused Tehran of supporting the “so-called non-government militia groups” in Iraq, according to Press TV.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran has not been directly or indirectly involved in any armed attack against any U.S. individual or body in Iraq,” Takht-Ravanchi said in a letter to U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Sunday.
“Therefore, we deny any claim about our implicit or explicit involvement in attacks against American forces in Iraq. Such allegations are totally baseless, invalid and false,” he added.
On March 4, ten rockets landed at Ain al-Asad military air base in Anbar province.
There were no reports of injuries among U.S. service personnel but an American civilian contractor died after suffering a “cardiac episode” while sheltering from the rockets, the Pentagon said.
U.S. officials told Reuters that the latest strike fit the profile of an attack by Iran-backed militia but the Pentagon said it was too soon to come to any conclusions.
In February, there were three rocket attacks in Iraq in just over a week that targeted areas that host U.S. troops, diplomats or contractors. One attack on Feb. 16 on U.S.-led forces killed a civilian contractor and injured a U.S. service member.
On February 25, U.S. forces carried out air strikes against facilities at a border control point in Syria used by Iranian-backed militias including Kata’ib Hezbollah and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada.
The Iranian ambassador to the U.N. said Tehran “condemns the U.S. unlawful attack” against Iraqi forces along the Syrian border.
“Such dangerous measures, which are wrongly justified based on an arbitrary interpretation of the article 51 of the U.N. charter, are considered violation of the sovereignty of regional countries, and a symbol of blatant breach of the international law and the U.N. charter,” he stated.
