A funeral for a man who was killing during an anti-government protest in Baghdad in November. More than 500 protesters have been killed and 19,000 wounded since the start of the demonstrations.Credit…Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters

BAGHDAD — For 12 weeks, Iraqi protesters have massed in the streets of Baghdad and cities in southern Iraq to demand the ouster of the government, an end to corruption and a halt to the overweening influence of Iran.

And for 12 weeks, the government has foundered in its response, alternating vague promises of reform with brutal treatment of protesters by its security forces. More than 500 protesters have been killed and 19,000 wounded, according to the United Nations special envoy to Iraq, but the violent response has only deepened protesters’ resolve.

The prime minister, Adel Abdul Mahdi, has resigned but has remained in a caretaker role, and Parliament has yet to come up with someone to replace him.

The political crisis that now confronts Iraq is as serious as any since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein 16 years ago, and its leaders appear ill-equipped to reckon with it. No consensus has emerged for a plan to reform the government to meet the protesters’ demands.

Parliament has not seriously considered even the proposed changes to the election law put forward by President Barham Salih, which would reduce the influence of parties and the corruption they foster.

This week, a constitutional deadline for Parliament to nominate a new prime minister came and went. Even finding an acceptable candidate for prime minister is a tall order.

“It’s very difficult to find someone who is both broadly acceptable to the street, to the protesters, but who also has the party support, the political support to navigate the transition,” said Maria Fantappie, a senior adviser on Iraq and Syria for the International Crisis Group.

Iraqi security forces during a clash in November with anti-government groups in Baghdad.Credit…Ivor Prickett for The New York Times

Even if they did, that would hardly begin to address the protesters’ sweeping demands.

“Our goal is not to have Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi resign,” said Mehdi Chassin, a college student from Amara, in southern Iraq, who came to Baghdad to join the protests. “That makes no difference because another guy will come who will be just the same. We want them all to go.”

But Parliament is unlikely to adopt reforms that would end the careers of everyone in it, and the protesters are unlikely to accept anything less.

“What the parties want is rejected by the Iraqi people and what the Iraqi people want is rejected by the parties,” said Karim al-Nuri, a senior official in the Badr Organization, one of the parties that is close to Iran, but has a diverse membership.

“So there are two alternatives: either to change the Iraqi people or to change some of the political class and make some change in the political process.”

Parliament also seems unprepared to find a way to reduce Iranian influence.

Iranian political and military operatives — including senior figures like Qassim Soleimani, the head of the powerful Quds Force that reports to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — have been in and out of Baghdad trying to ensure that whoever is nominated for prime minister meets Iran’s needs.

So, rather than debate the protesters’ demands directly, members of Parliament talk about how much they are doing — passing legislation to limit salaries of the ministers for instance.

Qais Al-Khazali, the leader of one of the Shiite parliamentary blocs close to Iran, said, “We have enacted legislation, that is our responsibility, now the government’s responsibility is to enforce it.”

When the protests started on Oct. 1, many who came to demonstrate in Baghdad and across southern Iraq were demanding jobs and services such as electricity and clean water.

But after the government opened fire on them, killing more than 100 in the first five days, the number of protesters multiplied and they began to agitate for more far-reaching changes.

Overhauling the entire system of government seems far from politically possible. But the protesters’ focus reflects their frustration with the government’s failure to foster economic opportunity or deal with entrenched corruption. These grievances unite all of those who have come to the street: the young people, the workers, the poor, the educated and the barely literate, the tribal leaders as well as urban street sweepers.

The protesters secured a bridge in Baghdad as part of a sit-in on Dec. 10.Credit…Ali Abdul Hassan/Associated Press

Some members of Parliament acknowledge that they are engaged in a different struggle: the allocation of spoils in the next government. The discussions over choosing a new prime minister, they said, have centered less on the ideals and desires of the Iraqi people than on political power and money.

“There’s a lot of division about who comes next as prime minister, and that’s a problem because the political parties are redividing up the ministries, looking to figure out who gets which ministry share,” said Haithem al-Jubori the head of Parliament’s finance committee.

Iran is particularly concerned that it maintain influence in Iraq’s ministries, especially those dealing with security and economic matters. With America’s tight sanctions against Iran, Tehran increasingly needs Iraq in order to “breathe” economically — both for its markets and for military purposes, to protect its interests in Syria and Lebanon.

The parties that are most powerful and closest to Iran are those that grew out of the armed Shiite groups. It is militia units from ministries controlled by those parties, or agencies of the prime minister, that are blamed by human rights activists for the most violent attacks on the protesters.

In responding to the protests with violence, these forces are taking a page from the Iranian playbook: When Tehran was faced with protests over gas prices in November, it crushed them brutally, killing as many as 450 people in four days and imprisoning 7,000.

Protesters in Najaf set a fire during a protest in front of the Iranian consulate in November.Credit…Reuters

The post Iraq in Worst Political Crisis in Years as Death Toll Mounts From Protests first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Location of two reported Israeli strikes against Iran targets in Iraq – Google Maps

• In a major shift, Israel twice struck Iranian targets in Iraq ‘using F-35’

• U.S. sanctions may cripple Iran, but it’s not why billions of dollars keep vanishing

• Israel is the only country in the world killing Iranians, senior Israeli minister boasts

Iran’s military entrenchment in Iraq poses a threat to Israel, defense officials say.

Iran began bolstering its presence in Iraq after Israel stepped up attacks on Iranian targets in Syria and Syrian President Bashar Assad regained control over most of his country. Israel’s efforts to thwart Iran’s attempts to bring sophisticated weaponry and air and naval forces into Syria led Tehran to revert to its old method of relying on local militias, which is harder for Israel to counter.

Israel’s intelligence assessment for 2019 states that despite Iran’s difficulties in entrenching itself militarily in Syria, it hasn’t given up on its ambition “to create regional hegemony for itself via alliances spreading from Iran through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon.” Nevertheless, the assessment continued: “Iran has been forced to recalculate the way it tries to realize its regional vision. This recalculation led Iran to realize that the domestic and international situation in Iraq created better opportunities for it to prepare its regional plans.”

Israeli defense officials say Iran has shifted the bulk of its deployment of missile systems outside the country to Iraq, which is harder for Israel to attack than Syria was. The latest airstrikes on Iraq, which the London-based paper Asharq Al-Awsat attributed to Israel on Tuesday, were aimed at such missile systems.

According to Israeli intelligence, Iran is currently providing Iraqi militias with missiles that have ranges of 200 to 700 kilometers and are capable of hitting anywhere in Israel. These missiles are more accurate than the ones in Hezbollah’s arsenal. Iran may use them either to hit Israel directly from northern Iraq or to transfer them as needed to Syria and Lebanon.

Iran’s regional deployment is largely based on missiles because it doesn’t think its aerial and ground forces are capable of standing up to Western armies. Consequently, it has focused on improving both the range and accuracy of its missiles in recent years.

According to media reports, the latest airstrikes attributed to Israel took place in northwestern Iraq. They targeted weapons storehouses and missiles at bases where Iranian advisers were present.

Two weeks ago, the media reported a drone strike in Iraq that killed members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah. Foreign media reports said the target that time was a base where missiles destined for Iranian-backed militias in Iraq were being stored.

Foreign media have also reported several other attacks on Iraq, some of which were attributed to Israel.

So far, however, Israel has kept mum about all these attacks, aside from a video clip published by the ruling Likud party that showed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an old speech to the United Nations vowing to act against Iran anywhere, including in Iraq. This clip, reposted three days after the attack on the base where Iranian forces were killed, could be seen as a hint that Israel was behind that strike.

But Israel has much less freedom of action in Iraq than in Syria because while it has the capability to strike Iraq, doing so could create problems with the United States administration.

U.S. President Donald Trump wants calm restored to Iraq as quickly as possible, and an airstrike on the country undermines its stability and deters foreign investors and donor states. Consequently, Iran is the one country whose trade with Iran has been exempted de facto from U.S. sanctions.

U.S. spy planes have recently intensified operations along the Iraq-Syria border. This may be a way of signaling to Israel that America will take care of preventing the smuggling of sophisticated arms to Hezbollah and Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria. Alternatively, America may have started taking action against Iran’s entrenchment in Iraq for fear that Iranian-sponsored militias in Iraq will attack U.S. forces.

Shi’ite militias are the second cornerstone of Iran’s military entrenchment in Iraq, alongside its missile deployments. Economic problems and growing religious extremism in many Arab countries have enabled Iran to recruit volunteers for the militias it supports. And these militias let it carry out military operations without taking responsibility for them.

Iran had ties with militias in Iraq even back in the 1980s and 1990s. But these militias have become more powerful militarily as technology improved and as their political power grew.

Iran provides them with military, economic, logistical and religious support. In exchange, they will help Iran if it asks them – including, according to a senior Israeli defense official, by coming to the Lebanese or Syrian borders to participate in fighting against Israel. The Dado Center for Interdisciplinary Military Studies, which is part of the Israel Defense Forces, also said in recent reports that Israel must take these militias into account in future fighting.

The strongest Iranian-backed militia is Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the model Iran seeks to replicate in other countries. Since 2014, it has also supported a network of Shi’ite militias in Iraq. These militias, now known as the Popular Mobilization Units, are second only to Hezbollah in terms of their importance to Iran. They united under the Popular Mobilization Units umbrella at the urging of Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the Iranian-born cleric who is the spiritual leader of Iraqi Shi’ites.

The strongest militia in the PMU is the Badr Organization, which has both a political and a military wing. The latter is thought to have some 50,000 fighters. The Badr Organization is headed by Hadi al-Amiri, a former transportation minister who is close to Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force. The organization also fought alongside America against the Islamic State.

Another important element of the PMU is Kata’ib Hezbollah. It was founded by Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, an Iraqi Shi’ite trained in Iran to establish an Iraqi organization resembling the Quds Force. He is very close to Soleimani and has said in the past that he’s willing to fight alongside Iran.

The PMU also includes Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, which has perpetrated attacks on American forces in Iraq. Its leaders are very close to senior Hezbollah officials, and Hezbollah helps fund it. Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq also gets millions of dollars each month from Iran.

Iran-back Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces militia members march as they hold their flag and posters of Iraqi and Iranian Shiites spiritual leaders during “al-Quds” or Jerusalem Day, in Baghdad, Iraq Hadi Mizban, AP

The post Iran Presence in Iraq Threatens Israel, Security Officials Say first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan 24) – Two Iraqi Shiite groups have threatened the US and Israel following airstrikes Sunday night on a militia position in the Syrian town of Albu Kamal, close to the border with Iraq.

The attack may have killed as many as 52 fighters from the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a coalition of groups that fought the Islamic State (IS), following its 2014 assault on Iraq.

The PMF first blamed the US for Sunday’s strike, but the US firmly denied any involvement, and CNN, along with Kurdistan 24, reported that Israel was likely responsible.

An Iranian-backed group, Kata’ib Hizbollah, was stationed in Albu Kamal. It was established, with Iranian backing, during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and attacked US forces then. Consequently, the US designated it a terrorist organization.

In last month’s elections—the results of which many Iraqis charge were rigged by Tehran—Kata’ib Hizbollah won 15 parliamentary seats.

On Tuesday, Kata’ib Hizbollah threatened, “The crime of the bombing” at Albu Kamal “will reopen the confrontation with the Zionist entity and the US schemes.”

The PMF are formally part of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and Kata’ib Hizbollah was joined by another Iranian-backed militia, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, which demanded that Baghdad take “decisive action” against the “international and regional” plans that threaten Iraq and Syria—implying that Baghdad should tell US forces to leave, now that IS has been largely defeated in Iraq.

As the militias issued their threats and demands, however, the US denied any knowledge of key details of Sunday’s attack, suggesting it was not relevant to the US mission in Iraq.

Col. Sean Ryan, Spokesperson for the US-led Coalition against IS, formally known as Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR), speaking to Pentagon reporters by teleconference from Baghdad on Tuesday, was questioned about the strike on Albu Kamal.

Asked if Israel had carried out the attack, he replied, “I can’t comment,” adding that it was not the Coalition or the Iraqis, “and that’s really all we’re concerned about at this point.”

“It bothers me that a coalition spokesman can say something like that,” Paul Davis, a former Pentagon analyst, retired from the US Army, told Kurdistan 24, because the question of “who was behind the attack is relevant to your mission.”

When asked about possible retaliation for Sunday’s strike, Ryan responded that given the good US relations with the ISF, “I don’t think that’s ever going to be a concern”—as if there were not an extended history of Iranian-backed groups attacking US troops, whether in Lebanon in the 1980s or in Iraq during OIF—by some of the same groups that are now part of the ISF!

In February, Iraq’s Interior Ministry—headed by Qasim al-Araji, a senior member of the Badr Organization, another Iranian-backed group—announced that Iraq would soon open the border crossing with Syria at Albu Kamal.

The Middle East Institute’s “IranObserved Project” reported that Albu Kamal is a “strategic prize for Iran and its allies,” which had succeeded in capturing the border crossing ahead of a US-backed force.

“For the first time, Tehran will have land access to the Mediterranean coast and Beirut,” an online publication of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed, describing it as “an unprecedented development in Iran’s several-thousand-year history,” the MEI reported,

That would have been extremely troubling to Israel, of course, and would explain Sunday’s strike.

Ryan also sought to minimize the significance of the attack by claiming the force in Albu Kamal was not sent there by Baghdad.

Kurdistan 24 pressed as to who, then, had sent those forces there? Under whose authority were they operating?

Ryan provided no answer. They were Iraqi forces, he acknowledged, but once they crossed the border, they were “no longer under ISF control or direction.”

Michael Pregent, an Iraq expert at the Hudson Institute and formerly an adviser to US commanders during OIF, expressed his concern about the US position.

Pregent noted that the head of Kata’ib Hizbollah, Abu Mehdi al Muhandis, “is a designated terrorist,” yet he “controls the PMF budget.”

“He does not answer” to Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi, but “to Qasim Soleimani,” head of Iran’s IRGC-Quds Force.

“The US should not go out of its way to downplay the role of Iran and should admonish Baghdad for its support for IRGC-QF militias,” Pregent said.

Kurdistan 24 subsequently asked the State Department, if it was reasonable to understand the strike on Albu Kamal as a “warning to Baghdad” about Iran’s use of “its territory and personnel” in ways that Israel regards as threatening. The State Department Spokesperson, however, simply deferred to the Defense Department and the non-answers it had given earlier that day.

Source: http://www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/5c8883f6-be16-4ebf-95f5-a17c7fdf63dd

The post Iraqi militias threaten US and Israel first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.