Lockheed Martin withdraws contractors from Iraq over security fears

Shafaq News/ Lockheed Martin, a global security and aerospace company said Monday that it was removing its contractors for Iraq’s F-16 fighter jets for security reasons, as the Iraqi government struggles to end rocket attacks by militias suspected of being backed by Iran.

"In coordination with the U.S. government and with employee safety as our top priority, Lockheed Martin is relocating our Iraq-based F-16 team," the company told Reuters.

According to Newyork Times, The departure by the U.S. weapons manufacturer from Balad air base, 40 miles north of Baghdad, highlights the Iraqi government’s “inability to rein in the militias, which are thought to be behind attacks on U.S. interests.” It comes a year after the Iraqi prime minister.

The decision by Lockheed Martin is expected to ground the few remaining F-16s from Iraq’s fleet that were still operational. That is casting doubt on Iraq’s ability to fight Islamic State militants without substantial U.S. help, at a time when Mr. Kadhimi is under pressure to negotiate a withdrawal of all American forces. The Newspaper reported.

“In coordination with the U.S. government and with employee safety as our top priority, Lockheed Martin is relocating our Iraq-based F-16 team,” Joseph LaMarca Jr., a company vice president for communications, said in a statement.

Mr. LaMarca declined to say how many employees were being withdrawn, and another company spokesperson said Lockheed Martin would not disclose any further information. It remarked.

Iraq’s Defense Ministry did not comment, but an Iraqi security official, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said to Newyork Times that Lockheed Martin had 70 employees at Balad. He added that 50 would be relocated to the U.S. while about 20 would be moved to Erbil in the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

A senior ministry official told the Newspaper that Martin Lockheed was withdrawing the team because of repeated rocket attacks on the base. He said that efforts to persuade the company to stay had failed.

“We asked them to delay the decision,” the official said. “They told us, ‘We will leave for two or three months, and when you provide protection we will return to Iraq.’”

“Unfortunately, the departure will affect the operation of the F-16s,” he said.

Lockheed Martin withdrew personnel from Balad temporarily last year after tensions rose with Iran following an American drone strike in Baghdad that killed a prominent Iranian commander, Maj. Gen. Qasim Soleimani, and a senior Iraqi security official at Baghdad International Airport.

Those tensions threatened to flare again last week after a detailed Yahoo News report about the drone strike, which said it was carried out by U.S. operatives with the help of Israeli intelligence and the participation of Kurdish counterterrorism forces. The government of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region has denied that its forces participated.

Newyork Times remarked that Iran-backed groups are believed to be responsible for the continued assassinations of Iraqi human rights activists.

Iran repeatedly denied these accusations.

The Iraqi prime minister, in an interview recorded Saturday with several Iraqi television channels, said Iraq was trying to persuade the remaining U.S. companies that their employees would be safe, and acknowledged the F-16 program had been problematic.

“The lack of experts to maintain aircraft according to the agreement signed with the American companies when buying them is a problem,” he said. “Some of these companies withdrew from Iraq due to irrational actions and the missile attack on Balad Air Base.”