Americans told to leave Iraq, amid escalating tensions
WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan 24) – The US embassy in Baghdad called on all American citizens presently in the country to leave immediately, following Thursday night’s drone strike that killed Qasim Soleimani, head of Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy head of the Iraqi militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces.
READ MORE: US strike kills Qasim Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis
“Due to heightened tensions in Iraq and the region, we urge US citizens to depart Iraq immediately,” the embassy tweeted on Friday morning.
US authorities have intelligence that Iran was planning to kidnap Americans in Iraq, Josh Rogin, a columnist for The Washington Post, tweeted, suggesting that would explain the embassy’s urgent warning.
Kurdistan Region as Safe Haven
Iraq’s Oil Ministry issued a statement later on Friday, noting that US employees of foreign oil companies in Basra were leaving the country, as Reuters reported.
Numerous foreign oil companies operate in Iraq. Two oil companies that work in the Kurdistan Region, Genel and Gulf Keystone Petroleum, told Reuters that they were operating as normal, although they were also watchful.
British Petroleum, Eni, an Italian company, America’s Exxon Mobil, and Canada’s Packer Plus, all operate in southern Iraq. They either declined to comment to Reuters or affirmed that their operations were proceeding as normal.
A line of foreign workers leaving Iraq were seen at the Basra airport, checking in at the FlyDubai and Qatar airways counters, presumably bound, as a first stop at least, for Qatar and Dubai.
On Thursday, the US embassy in Baghdad began to recover following the assault against the facility. One of its first actions was to issue a statement that consular services had been suspended. However, the US consulate in Erbil remained open and continued to offer such services.
READ MORE: US embassy in Baghdad suspends services after Iran-backed militia attack
As Nicholas Heras, Middle East Security Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, recently wrote, the Kurdistan Region “represents a notable exception” to the anti-Americanism that is found elsewhere in Iraq.
READ MORE: No Better Friends: The US-Kurdistan Region Security Partnership
It is unclear what effect, if any, the departure of US, and, perhaps, other foreign oil workers, will have. The popular protests in Iraq, going back to October, had led to a slight decrease in Iraqi oil production in December. The overwhelming bulk of Iraqi crude is exported from Basra.
Iraq is the world’s fourth largest oil producing country—behind the US, Saudi Arabia and Russia. Yet Iraq’s population suffers from widespread government corruption and mismanagement, resulting in poor services and high unemployment.