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By Tom O'Connor
Deputy Editor, National Security and Foreign Policy
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A senior official of a powerful Iraqi militia has told Newsweek that U.S. President Donald Trump must live up to his predecessor's commitment to withdraw troops from the country by the end of the year amid a series of escalations that have once again put the Middle East on the brink of a larger conflict.
"Trump is obligated to withdraw his forces from Iraq by the end of 2025, and they must abide by their pledges to the Iraqi government," Firas al-Yasser, a member of the Nujaba Movement's Political Council, told Newsweek. "We know that the occupying American forces cannot withstand the advanced and modern strikes of the resistance."
The Nujaba Movement is part of an umbrella of Iraqi factions operating under the banner of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq. The bloc is included in the broader Iran-aligned Axis of Resistance coalition that has intervened on behalf of the Palestinian Hamas movement in its war with Israel, deemed the "Al-Aqsa Flood." While Iraqi factions have largely suspended their campaign of rocket attacks against U.S. troops since February 2024, tensions involving both the U.S. and Israel have reignited in recent weeks.
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Yasser's comments came just days after Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein revealed that Baghdad had received indications of impending Israeli plans to strike the country. Hussein said Wednesday that the immediate risk had been averted, but the threat of eventual Israeli military action lingered.
The Nujaba Movement was prepared to take action against either the U.S. or Israel should they strike Iraq, according to Yasser.
"These warnings are nothing new," Yasser said. "Israel previously threatened Iraq in the Battle of the Al-Aqsa Flood. We do not rule out that America and Israel seek to escalate the situation in the region, and what is happening in Gaza, Yemen, and the Syrian-Lebanese border confirms the provocative operations they are carrying out."
"The movement has received threats from America and Israel more than once, and if an attack is carried out against the movement or the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, there will be a response," he said. "The Iraqi resistance has targeted Israel in support of and defense of the people of Gaza."
Reached for comment, the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense referred Newsweek to U.S. Central Command, which then referred Newsweek to the White House. Newsweek has contacted the White House, the Iraqi Embassy to the United States for comment.
An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) official told Newsweek that "the IDF is prepared on all fronts and will not disclose future operational plans."
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War and Peace
At his inauguration two months ago, Trump declared his intention to put an end to wars in the Middle East. His speech came just a day after Israel and Hamas signed a ceasefire and prisoner exchange deal for which the incoming U.S. leader took credit.
The truce has since collapsed, however, with Israel cutting off humanitarian assistance to Gaza, prompting Ansar Allah, the Yemeni faction of the Axis of Resistance also known as the Houthi movement, to threaten new strikes against Israel. Trump reacted by ordering widespread strikes against the group's positions in Yemen on Saturday and threatening Tehran directly two days later.
Ansar Allah responded by claiming multiple attacks on the USS Harry Truman aircraft carrier in the Red Sea, while Israel launched a new campaign of strikes against Gaza. Ansar Allah then conducted a new series of missile strikes against Israel, accompanied by additional U.S. strikes in Yemen.
In a call with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani on Sunday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth discussed "U.S. operations to eliminate the Houthi threat to American commerce and restore American freedom of navigation," while acknowledging "Iraq's strong partnership in addressing shared security challenges," including a recent joint operation that killed the latest head of the Islamic State militant group (ISIS), according to a Pentagon readout.
Sudani also affirmed the lasting U.S.-Iraq partnership against ISIS, while stressing that "de-escalation and dialogue are the most effective means of addressing crises in a sensitive and vital region like the Middle East," according to a readout from his office.
Yasser, however, warned that "Trump made a grave mistake in his military operations against the Yemeni people, as well as instructing the occupying entity to resume its operations against the Palestinians in Gaza, because this revealed to the world that America does not abide by its promises and that its leaders cannot be trusted."
"These American steps will not and will not change the reality of the resistance in the region, and American threats aim to provoke the resistance," he said. "America must realize that the world has begun to change and refrain from resorting to bullying policies."
Blowback in Iraq
Iraq has been in the throes of conflict for more than two decades since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled longtime President Saddam Hussein. His downfall was followed by a rise of rival Sunni and Shiite Muslim insurgencies, the former of which also emerged in Syria as the neighboring country fell into civil war in 2011.
The Nujaba Movement, also known as Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, or "the Movement of the Party of God's Nobles," was established in 2013 to aid the Syrian government, a close ally of Iran. The following year, Iraqi cities began to fall as well to an extremist Sunni Islamist offensive by fighters swearing allegiance to what would soon become ISIS.
The Nujaba Movement became one of many Iraqi militias to constitute the Popular Mobilization Forces, which later became integrated into the Iraqi Armed Forces as part of the fight against ISIS. After ISIS was largely defeated in 2019, a number of Popular Mobilization Forces units continued to operate with autonomy, targeting U.S. troops amid tensions between Washington and Tehran.
As violence swelled in 2020 with the U.S. strike in Baghdad that killed Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander Major General Qassem Soleimani and Popular Mobilization Forces deputy chief Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, Trump began to reduce the U.S. military presence in Iraq. His successor, then-President Joe Biden, later announced the end of the U.S. combat mission in the country in 2021, though roughly 2,500 personnel remained.
Amid a new round of clashes between U.S. forces and Iraqi militias following the outbreak of the war in Gaza in October 2023, Biden reached a deal with Baghdad in September to begin pulling troops out of the country between September 2025 and September 2026.
But Nujaba Movement spokesperson Hussein al-Musawi expressed to Newsweek at the time that the group was "not convinced by the American promises."
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'All Options Are Possible'
Despite his prior escalations against Iran and allied militias in Iraq, Trump's election victory initially sowed hope among some Islamic Resistance in Iraq factions that he would seek to reduce U.S. military involvement abroad. But the White House has yet to commit to the withdrawal framework outlined by Biden.
And with Ansar Allah and the Islamic Resistance of Iraq emerging as Iran's most resilient Axis of Resistance allies following the blows suffered by the Lebanese Hezbollah movement and the collapse of Assad's government in Syria, the Nujaba Movement has committed to formulating a unified response to potential enemy plans in Iraq.
"I believe we are at a stage where all options are possible, and the Iraqi Islamic Resistance is on high alert in anticipation of any developments," Yasser said. "Coordination is ongoing with the parties of the Axis of Resistance, and there will be cooperation in coordinating the nature, quality and type of the upcoming confrontation."
"Israel has witnessed the strength of the resistance fighters," he said.
Update 3/20/25 8:21 a.m. ET: This article has been updated to include comments shared by an Israel Defense Forces official.
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