Quarterly Updates for (1 Jul 2019 — 30 Sep 2019)

               In what appears to be a 1st, Israeli F-35 fighter jets attacked an Iraqi base said to be an Iranian-supported militia weapons warehouse 30 miles northeast of Baghdad on 7/19 and 7/21. According to Asharq al-Awsat, several injuries were reported. United States (U.S.) officials later confirmed that Israel was behind the attacks along with other attacks in August. On 8/26, both Iraqi president Barham Salih and prime minister Adel Abdul Mahdi condemned the Israeli attacks, saying they were attacks “on Iraqi sovereignty.” In 1 of the attacks on 8/25, Israeli drones shot and killed 1 Iraqi and critically injured 1 other near the Syrian-Iraqi border. After the condemnation from the Iraqi leadership, the U.S. Department of Defense released a statement supporting Iraqi sovereignty and opposing “external actors” without specifically naming Israel. The Pentagon statement was released shortly after a large Iraqi voting bloc had called for the U.S. to leave Iraq; it assumed that the U.S. had been consenting to the Israeli strikes.