Security experts: US targets Iraqi popular mobilization units to resuscitate Daesh

Security experts believe the United States is targeting Iraq’s anti-terror Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) in order to resuscitate the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group that had wreaked havoc in the Arab country since 2014, but was defeated in late 2017.

“Washington succeeded in enabling terrorists to enter the al-Jada'a camp in [Iraq’s] Nineveh province by transferring them from the al-Hawl camp in Syria. This shows that the US wishes for a resumption of terrorist operations in Iraq,” Iraqi security expert, Ali al-Waeli, said on Sunday, IRNA reported, citing Iraqi media.

Al-Waeli said Iraq’s security forces should closely watch the terrorists’ movements in hotspots where they are still operating.

Nasir al-Shamas, a Syrian security expert, also warned of the United States’ moves to target the PMU, also known as Hashd al-Sha'abi, and leveling accusations against the resistance group.

“The American forces resorted to direct confrontation (with PMU) after they were faced with major obstacles in smuggling narcotics and weapons for the terrorists on the Syrian-Iraqi border caused by Hashd al-Sha'abi and its supporting forces,” al-Shamas said.

The PMU forces played a key role in the defeat of Daesh and other terrorist groups in Iraq, but the US government has stabbed the anti-terror group in the back on several occasions.

On May 24, a barrage of rockets landed in Iraq’s Ain al-Asad air base, which houses US forces.

Ain al-Asad has been targeted several times since Iran launched a barrage of missiles at the base on January 8, 2020, as part of its retaliation for the US assassination of top anti-terror commander General Qassem Soleimani. 

Anti-American sentiments have remained high in Iraq since the ill-advised US act of terrorism, which also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of the PMU.

Iraqi parliament to summon PM over US violations: lawmaker

An Iraqi lawmaker says the parliament will summon Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi for explanations over the United States’ continued violation of the country’s sovereignty and plans to target anti-terror Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) or Hashd al-Sha’abi.

In the latest development, Iraqi security forces arrested Qasim Muslih, a senior official with the PMU, in Baghdad on charges of involvement in several attacks including the most recent attack on Ain al-Asad.

Iraq’s Defense Minister Juma Anad on Saturday described Muslih’s arrest as a “wrong move,” adding that his case has been dealt with in a wrong way and the solution to the issue is not right, either.

Anad told Iraq’s al-Marbad news website that he had fought alongside all PMU units against Daesh, and that the support of the popular resistance group in the parliament led to his appointment as defense minister.

On the arrest, Al-Waeli said the US is behind the targeting of PMU commanders so as to pave the way for Daesh terrorists to enter Iraq's al-Anbar province once again and resume their terrorist activities there.

According to al-Shamas, the latest “suspicious movements” were made to distract public attention from the Palestinian resistance and their achievements, and to get Iraq’s resistance involved in a domestic war.

“The US government’s actions in the future will not be military, but in the first place, giving false information to the Iraqi government about Hashd al-Sha'abi forces and other Iraqi security commanders,” the Syrian security expert added.

US ‘increasingly alarmed’ by drone attacks from Iraqi resistance groups: Washington Post

US military officials are increasingly alarmed by drone attacks from anti-terror resistance groups in Iraq, The Washington Post reports.

Amid rising tensions between the US and anti-terror Iraqi groups, the Daily Caller reported on Friday that the Pentagon is planning to seek approval from US President Joe Biden on strikes against those groups.

“The administration is looking hard at a broad range of responses to Shiite militia aggression against Americans in Iraq,” the news website quoted an unnamed source “with knowledge of the situation.”

It also quoted a second source as saying that the operations plan and various options will be discussed with the White House through the National Security Council, adding that “officials would seek Biden’s approval for the strike orders sometime soon.”

Biden’s first military strike on other countries’ soil was against the PMU at a border point in Syria’s eastern province of Day al-Zawr, only a month after he assumed office.

Early last year, Iraqi lawmakers unanimously approved a bill demanding the withdrawal of all US-led foreign military forces from the country in the wake of the assassination of Soleimani and Muhandis. But the US-led forces have maintained their presence in Iraq.

The US invaded Iraq in early 2003 under the later debunked pretext that the regime of Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Since then, according to a Sunday estimate by Iraqi President Barham Salih, $150 billion of Iraq’s stolen money has been smuggled out of Iraq in corrupt deals.

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