WASHINGTON has been accused of transferring jihadists from Syria into Iraq, in what has been described as an attempt to bolster the United States’s presence in the region after its forces were asked to leave by the Baghdad parliament.

Mohammed Mahdi al-Bayati, a leader of the Badr Organisation in Iraq said: “Eyewitnesses living along the border with Syria have informed security officials that American forces are conducting extensive airborne transfers of Daesh terrorists from Syria to Iraq.”

He claimed that the Islamists were entering Iraq from the borders close to the autonomous Kurdish region, and said that the US hoped these actions would lead to an upsurge in terror attacks in order to justify the presence of its troops in Iraq.