Iraqi Shiite cleric condemns U.S. missile strike on Syria

Iraq's firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Saturday called on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to resign and condemned the U.S. missile strike on Syria.

In a statement on his official website, Sadr called for all non-Syrian parties to stop intervening in the conflict in order to give the Syrian people the right to self-determination.

"I would consider it fair for President Bashar al-Assad to resign and leave power, allowing the people of Syria to avoid the scourge of war and domination of terrorists," Sadr said.

He also condemned the U.S. missile strike, urging all non-Syrian parties involved in the Syrian conflict to withdraw their forces.

"Let everyone know that America's military intervention would not be feasible. It has declared its bombing for Daesh (Islamic State) in Iraq, but terrorism is still on our land, and its intervention (in Iraq) has never been useful at all," Sadr said.

"I call on all parties to militarily withdraw so that the Syrian people take things into their own hands, as they are the only ones who have the right to decide their fate. Otherwise, Syria will turn into rubble," he said.

Sadr believes that the United States "has to stop its harm (on Syria), and that is also required from Russia and other parties," he added.

Earlier in the day, a statement by the office of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Abadi received a phone call from U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, and the two discussed the battles in Mosul, the international support to Iraq in its fight against terrorism and the situations in the region.

"Iraq considers the use of chemical weapons in Syria a condemned and denounced crime," Abadi was quoted as saying in the statement.

Abadi called for an urgent international investigation into the use of chemical weapons in Syria, the statement added.

For his part, Pence stressed that his country's policy in the region "has not changed, and our priority is a decisive defeat for Daesh in Iraq and the region."

On Friday, the United States carried out a missile strike on a Syrian military air base in response to what was believed to be a chemical weapons attack in Khan Sheikhun, a rebel-held town in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib. Endit