ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – A pro-Iran militia group in Iraq said on Wednesday that it is awaiting a response from Baghdad to the US-Saudi strikes on Popular Mobilization Forces’ (PMF) bases that is “commensurate with the gravity of the situation,” urging the prime minister to cancel a trip to Riyadh and cancel all recent agreements with Washington. 

Saraya Awliya al-Dam, a pro-Iran militia that has frequently targeted American interests in Iraq and the region, strongly condemned a series of US and Saudi airstrikes on Iraqi soil that killed at least 20 PMF members – in retaliation to drone strikes on Saudi Arabia that Riyadh blamed on pro-Iran Iraqi militias. 

“We in the Islamic Resistance, Saraya Awliya al-Dam, are still awaiting an official stance from the Iraqi government that is commensurate with the gravity of the situation and expresses loyalty to the sacrifices of the martyrs,” it said in a statement. 

The militia group further called on Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi to cancel a visit to Riyadh scheduled for Thursday, and for the premier to cancel all recent agreements signed during his visit to Washington. 

It further stressed that the Saudi ambassador in Iraq “must be expelled immediately, and diplomatic and economic relations with Saudi Arabia must be severed.” 

“If the government fails to fulfill its duty, the patriotic Iraqi people must demand that the government’s weapons be exclusively in the hands of the resistance,” the statement added. 

US President Donald Trump said the American-Saudi strikes had been coordinated with the Iraqi government, a Fox News correspondent reported after speaking with the president.

On Wednesday, Iraq’s National Security Council condemned the US-Saudi strikes on PMF bases in an emergency meeting chaired by Zaidi. 

The council “decided to develop a comprehensive security plan to secure the territory and counter any violations of Iraq’s sovereignty,” it said in a statement

The PMF is an umbrella group of Shiite militias that officially operates under the authority of the Iraqi state, but has been repeatedly criticized for including pro-Iran factions that operate at Tehran's behest.

Zaidi, who recently followed up a high-profile visit to meet US President Donald Trump in Washington with a trip to meet Iranian officials in Tehran and attend the funeral of late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, faces an enduring Iraqi geopolitical struggle between balancing relations with both the US and Iran.