ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Pro-Iran Iraqi armed groups suspended their attacks on US troops after a meeting with an Iranian commander, who told them to stay low, the Washington Post and Reuters have reported.

An Iranian military commander had landed in Baghdad last month and met with leaders of the pro-Iran armed groups in the country, pressuring them to suspend all attacks on US targets, according to a Washington Post report published on Sunday citing an Iraqi official.

The report added that the leaders had initially not been pleased with the suspension, but had acceded to the request.

A similar report by Reuters on Sunday identified the Iranian Commander as Esmail Qaani, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, who had landed in Baghdad Airport on January 29 and met with the pro-Iran groups.

According to Reuters’ report, which cited ten sources, Qaani told the militias to lay low as drawing American blood carried the risk of a heavy response.

When the US vowed revenge to the death of three US service members in Jordan, Kataib Hezbollah was steadfast to suspend its operations against US targets immediately, however Qaani’s directives must not have landed well with all the militias at the time.

Following the first round of US responses on February 2, The New Region interviewed Mahdi al-Kaabi, who is a prominent leader within the ranks of the Nujaba movement, an armed group part of the pro-Iran Islamic Resistance network and officially considered as the 12th brigade of the PMF.

Responding as to when the tit for tat approach between the US and these armed groups will end, Kaabi believed that such decision was completely reliant on the American side, as his group believes it is the US who is unwelcome on Iraqi land.

“When the Americans respect the sovereignty of Iraq and do not infringe on the Iraqi armed forces, nor on the people of Iraq, nor on the Islamic resistance, when the Americans deal with respect for the Iraqi state and for the Iraqi blood there, they will actually stop, because these operations, the departure of the Americans from Iraq, is one of the main and major reasons for the stability of Iraq,” Kaabi told The New Region’s Ibrahim Saleh.

Nujaba movement, to which Kaabi owes allegiance, has been among the groups most insistent on combating US troops in the country.

When the US announced in January that it would respond to the death of three US service members in Jordan, unlike Kataib Hezbollah who in an official statement said they would suspend attacks on US forces, Nujaba stressed that their attacks would not stop.

The PMF, though officially incorporated into the Iraqi armed forces, is described by many to share similar ideology with the Islamic Republic, and armed groups functioning under the PMF umbrella are considered part of the informal Iran-led axis of resistance in the region against Israel and western forces.

However in the long term, Qaani’s visit may have been effective. As of Tuesday, pro-Iran Iraqi groups have not struck any US targets inside Iraq for over two weeks.