BAGHDAD/JEDDAH: Iran-backed armed factions in Iraq rallied their supporters in Baghdad on Saturday in a show of strength to mark the second anniversary of the death of Iranian warlord Qassem Soleimani.
Soleimani, head of the Quds Force, the foreign expeditionary arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was killed in a US drone strike at Baghdad airport on Jan. 3, 2020.
His Iraqi lieutenant, Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, deputy head of the Hashd Al-Shaabi paramilitary alliance, was also killed in the strike.
Thousands of Hashd supporters, some with their children, chanted “Death to America” as they marched into a square in central Baghdad on Saturday.
Some unfurled large white flags emblazoned with the Hashd insignia, as well as Iraq’s national flag, while others held pictures of Soleimani and Al-Muhandis.
Senior Hashd official Faleh Al-Fayyad said the killing of Soleimani and Al-Muhandis was “a crime against Iraqi sovereignty,” and demanded that the US complete its military withdrawal from Iraq.
FASTFACT
The Hashd Al-Shaabi are on the back foot after their political wing, the Fatah alliance, lost two-thirds of its seats in elections in October, and its legal challenge to the election results was thrown out last week by the Supreme Court.
“US terrorism has to end” read one sign at the rally by backers of the pro-Iranian Hashed, a former paramilitary alliance that has been integrated into Iraq’s state security apparatus.
Former US president Donald Trump ordered the strike that killed Soleimani near Baghdad’s airport along with his Iraqi lieutenant Abu Hamdi Al-Muhandis, Hashed’s deputy.
Trump said at the time that the assassination came in response to a wave of attacks on US interests in Iraq.
The killing of Soleimani, the architect of Iran’s Middle Eastern military strategy, sent shock waves across the region and sparked fears of a direct military confrontation between decades-old arch enemies Washington and Tehran.
The Islamic republic, which wields considerable influence in neighboring Iraq, warned it would avenge Soleimani’s death.
Five days after his killing, Iran fired missiles at an air base in Iraq housing US troops and another near Irbil in the north.
Since then dozens of rockets and roadside bombs have targeted Western security, military and diplomatic sites across Iraq.
Iraqi and Western officials have blamed hard-line pro-Iran factions for the attacks, which have never been claimed by any group.
In February last year, the US carried out an air strike against Kataeb Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Iraqi paramilitary force stationed along the Iraqi-Syrian border, following rocket attacks on its Baghdad embassy and a US military contracting firm north of the capital.
Hashed has repeatedly called for the withdrawal of US troops who are deployed in Iraq as part of a multinational coalition fighting jihadists of the Daesh group.
Senior Hashed official Faleh Al-Fayyad reiterated the demand Saturday, saying the killing of Soleimani and Muhandis was “a crime against Iraqi sovereignty.”
In December, Iraq announced the end of the “combat mission” there of the US-led coalition against the IS. But about 2,500 American soldiers and 1,000 coalition troops will remain deployed in Iraq to offer training, advice and assistance to national forces.
(With AFP)
