ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The Hashd al-Shaabi, an Iraqi paramilita established to fight the Islamic State (ISIS), should withdraw from Syria so that Iraq does not get dragged into a conflict between Iran and the US and Israel, firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said Saturday.
Sadr, who leads the strongest bloc in the Iraqi parliament, issued the warning as Baghdad tries to balance relations between regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia and navigate the escalating confrontation between Iran and the United States.
Sadr made a total of ten suggestions to the Iraqi government aimed at trying to avoid involvement in regional conflicts, including “the withdrawal of Iraqi groups affiliated to Hashd al-Shaabi and others from Syria and returning them to Iraq immediately without delay”.
“I am concerned about the conflict between Iran and the bilateral union [of the US and Israel] – the union which is responsible for starving people in the worst way and humiliate them in the pretext of terrorism,” Sadr said in the statement.
Hashd al-Shaabi was established in 2014 after Iraq’s influential cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa calling on Iraqis to fight ISIS. It was officially integrated into the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) in 2016, when parliament recognized it as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). Through the ISIS conflict Iran-backed militias fought alongside the Hashd.
Iran, as the first nation to come to Iraq’s aid when ISIS seized swathes of the country in 2014, played a substantial role in support of these militias.
After Iraq declared the territorial defeat of ISIS in Iraq in late 2017, however, several Hashd units were deployed to Syria to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in the fights against opposition groups and ISIS.
Iran has long been a major military backer of the Assad regime, deploying thousands of troops and proxy fighters to Syria. Tehran insists its personnel in Syria are merely there as military advisors who are not involved in combat.
“What matters to me is that Iraq should not be involved in this ideological and political conflict,” Sadr said, warning that any support for the Iranian side could put Iraq in a difficult position.
This does not mean Iraq should support the US-Israel side, Sadr said, as this is “prohibited in our religion, doctrine and law”.
Israel has launched repeated air and missile strikes against suspected Iranian positions inside Syria, accusing Tehran of moving heavy weaponry close to Syria’s disputed border with Israel.
Six Iraqis were reportedly killed in an Israeli airstrike in northern Syrian on March 27 targeting Iranian forces.
Russia, which is the Syrian regime’s main supporter, insisted on Saturday that Iranian troops are pulling back 85 kilometers from the Golan Heights, despite the America’s recent recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the disputed strategic plateau.
Hashd al-Shaabi Committee chief Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, whose Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq paramilitia is active in Syria, told a memorial service in Baghdad on Friday: “We will continue to protect the national security of Iraq, even from outside Iraq.”
In support of its Israeli allies, the US has been turning up the heat on Iran over the past year.
The US withdrew from the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal in May 2018, claiming the agreement did not go far enough in preventing Iran from developing nuclear capabilities, ballistic missile technology, or from interfering in regional conflicts.
Washington reimposed a raft of sanctions targeting Iran’s economy and oil sector. It also listed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its extraterritorial Quds Forces as foreign terrorist organizations.
Iraq’s economy, politics, and military affairs are deeply enmeshed with neighboring Iran and the IRGC, making its compliance with US sanctions extremely awkward.
Although many powerful figures in Iraq are keen to maintain this special relationship with Shiite coreligionists in Iran and shrug of US influence, the Iraqi government is eager to develop ties elsewhere in the Middle East region to help fund reconstruction – particularly Iran’s Sunni rival Saudi Arabia.
Sadr also called on Saturday for the government of Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi and President Barham Salih to send peace delegations to the European Union, the United Nations, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to help improve ties and pursue regional conflict resolution.
In particular, Sadr called for another delegation to visit Saudi Arabia, “which currently intends to be closer to Iraq and its people to find a solution between it and our dear neighbor Iran.”
