BAGHDAD
(AP) — As the United States and Israel escalate their push to contain
Iranian influence in the Middle East, countries in Tehran’s orbit are
feeling the heat.
Pro-Iranian militias
across Lebanon, Syria and Iraq are being targeted, both with economic
sanctions and precision airstrikes hitting their bases and
infrastructure. This is putting the governments that host them in the
crosshairs of an escalating confrontation and raising the prospect of
open conflict.
Nowhere is that being felt
more than in Iraq. It is wedged between Saudi Arabia to the south and
Iran to the east and hosts thousands of U.S. troops on its soil. At the
same time, powerful Shiite paramilitary forces linked to Iran pose a
growing challenge to the authority of the central government.
As
the pressure mounts, divisions within Iraq’s pro-Iranian factions have
burst into the open, threatening to collapse a fragile government
coalition and end a rare reprieve from the violence that has plagued the
country for years.
“Regional challenges
facing Iraq will make it even more difficult for Adel Abdel-Mahdi to
bring the (militias) under control,” said Randa Slim, a senior fellow at
the Washington-based Middle East Institute, referring to Iraq’s prime
minister.
The divisions among Iran’s Shiite
allies in Iraq have been spurred by a spate of airstrikes blamed on
Israel that have hit weapons depots and bases belonging to the
Iran-backed militias, known collectively as the Popular Mobilization
Forces, or PMF.
There have been at least
nine strikes since July both inside Iraq and across the border in Syria,
sparking outrage among PMF leaders. They blame Israel and by extension
its U.S. ally, which maintains more than 5,000 troops in Iraq.
Israel
has not confirmed its involvement in the attacks, and U.S. officials
have said Israel was behind at least one strike inside Iraq.
The
attacks have fueled calls for a U.S. troop withdrawal by hard-line
anti-American groups in the country that have strong ties to Iran.
“The
Americans are hostage here ... If war breaks out, they will all be
hostages of the resistance factions,” said Abu Alaa al-Walae, secretary
general of the Sayyed al-Shuhada Brigades, one of the prominent militia
factions with strong ties to Iran. He spoke in a televised interview
this week.
Such bellicose talk is deeply
embarrassing for Iraq’s prime minister, who has struggled to balance his
country’s alliance with both the U.S., which was invited back by the
Baghdad government to help fight the Islamic State group, and Iran,
which is Iraq’s most important trading partner. As the crisis over
Tehran’s unraveling nuclear deal with world powers has escalated over
the past months, that position is becoming increasingly untenable.
This
week, there was a sense of foreboding following an attack by drones and
cruise missiles on key Saudi Arabian oil installations. Yemen’s Houthi
rebels claimed it was in response to the yearslong Saudi-led war there,
but U.S. and Saudi officials said it was launched from the north. Iran
and Iraq lie to the north of Saudi Arabia, while Yemen is in the south.
Iraq’s
government was quick to deny that the attack originated from Iraqi
territory, a claim that was later said to have been confirmed by
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a phone call with Abdel-Mahdi.
The
episode, however, demonstrated the Iraqi government’s tentative hold
over the militias and raised questions about what they might do if the
U.S. starts bombing Iran, for instance. Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran’s
elite Quds Force and the architect of its regional entrenchment, met
this week with Iraqi Shiite politicians and PMF leaders in Baghdad,
apparently to discuss scenarios.
A directive
issued by Iraq’s prime minister in July integrating and placing
Iranian-backed militias under the command of the state’s security
apparatus forces by July 31 has so far not been implemented.
Instead,
PMF billboards reading “Death to America” have popped up between lanes
of traffic in central Baghdad, following allegations of Israeli
involvement in the series of airstrikes. One poster bears a picture of
what looks like the ghost of the Statue of Liberty wearing a black hood.
“America is the reason for insecurity and instability in the region,”
it reads.
Meanwhile, divisions within the
PMF’s leadership have surfaced in public, which is likely to exacerbate
tensions. The head of the PMF, Faleh al-Fayyadh, has twice clashed with
his deputy, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, in the past month, including when he
walked back a statement by al-Muhandis in which he held the U.S.
responsible for the spate of attacks on PMF bases.
The
PMF is headed by al-Fayyadh but practically run by al-Muhandis, a
military commander who has been designated a terrorist by Washington.
Both men are firmly in Iran’s camp. Soleimani met with both men this
week, a senior politician told The Associated Press.
Earlier
this month, a document attributed to al-Muhandis was circulated in
which he ordered the formation of a PMF air force directorate and the
appointment of Salah Mahdi Hantous, who’s been on a U.S. sanctions list
since 2012, as its chief. In a statement published on its website, the
PMF later denied the report.
The document
nonetheless angered Shiite politicians including the powerful cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr, who tweeted that a PMF air force would spell the end of
the Iraqi government and turn Iraq into a “rogue state.” Days later, he
flew to Iran and held a meeting with Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei.
Iraq’s top Shiite cleric,
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, whose 2014 religious decree calling for
volunteer fighters against the Islamic State gave rise to the PMF, views
these militias’ growing political and economic influence with suspicion
and has pushed for Abdel-Mahdi’s directive to be implemented.
In
surprisingly blunt comments, al-Sistani’s representative in Beirut,
Hamid al-Khafaf, said progress in Iraq hinges on bringing all arms under
state control.
Political analyst Hisham
al-Hashemi said the current power struggle among Iraq’s Shiite militias
is between PMF factions that support the state, and those whose loyalty
rests more with Iran.
He questioned the government’s ability to impose its authority on PMF factions.
Referring
to the removal earlier this year of blast walls that snaked through the
city to protect from suicide car bombs, he said: “The Iraqi government,
which removed the concrete blocks from around Baghdad, is unable to
remove the signs of ‘death to Israel and America.’”
___
Karam reported from Beirut.
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