Islam Times - Iraq rejects claim of anti-US efforts

Islam Times - A local government in southern Iraq has rejected US claims that it is helping militants to launch attacks against American forces stationed there.

Islam Times reports from Press TV: The Governor of Qadisiyyah Province, Salim Hussein Alwan, dismissed Washington's accusation as completely baseless.

The local official, who is seated in the province's capital al-Diwaniyah, meanwhile accused the United Sates of violating the 2008 US-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA).

“US troops have committed many wrongdoings against Iraqi civilians in Diwaniyah, of course we have warned them that their presence in the streets will bring nothing but violence,” Alwan said.

Under SOFA, the US is mandated to withdraw its 50,000-strong force from war-wrecked Iraq by December 31, 2011.

The agreement also forced Washington to end its combat operations in Iraq in August 2010.

However, despite that, there have been numerous reports of US troops' involvement in military operations in Iraq.

American officials are now pressing Baghdad to allow an extended US military presence in the strategically important Middle Eastern nation.

This is while, according to Iraqi officials, local security forces are now completely capable of maintaining stability in the country.

Washington and its allies invaded Iraq in 2003 under the pretext of finding weapons of mass destruction stockpiled by the former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein.

However, the invasion proved to have been based on deliberately falsified assumptions.

The war brought widespread violence, high civilian casualties and destruction to the Iraqi people.