ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Hadi al-Ameri, a senior Iraqi Shiite politician and head of the Badr Organization - an influential political party and armed group in Iraq - on Friday urged the Iran-aligned Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) to delay “any response" to the recent US-Saudi strikes on affiliated positions, as the deadline set by the entity in its ultimatum to the Iraqi government to take action has arrived.
"I appeal to my sons and brothers in the Islamic Resistance in Iraq [IRI] ... to postpone any response to the American-Saudi attack that targeted Iraq, and to endure these wounds patiently, for the sake of Iraq's higher interest," Ameri said in a video message viewed by Rudaw English.
"The rights of the martyrs and wounded [from the strikes] will be pursued through diplomatic means," he added.
Last week, Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) said "at least 20" of its members were killed and "32 others were injured" in joint American-Saudi strikes that targeted a number of the organization's "official headquarters" in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, and five other provinces.
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) then stated that the "precision strikes in Iraq" were launched against "Iran-aligned terrorists that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) directed to attack U.S. forces and Saudi energy infrastructure."
The Saudi defense ministry, meanwhile, said the same day that it had launched the strikes "following reprehensible drone attacks carried out against the Kingdom by Iran-backed militias in Iraq," reaffirming "the Kingdom's determination to deter the perpetrators."
The PMF was established in 2014 during the Islamic State (ISIS) blitz, which saw the group seize control of large parts of northern and western Iraq.
Created in response to a religious edict, or fatwa, by Iraq's highest Shiite authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the PMF was initially an umbrella organization of roughly 70 predominantly Shiite armed groups with approximately 250,000 members.
Although it is a state-funded institution, the PMF notably includes factions widely believed to overlap with the Iran-led ‘Axis of Resistance’ which have carried out attacks against alleged US targets in the region in support of Tehran since the outbreak of the Iran war in late February, often operating under the banner of the IRI.
The IRI's core overlap within the PMF includes the Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, Kata'ib Hezbollah, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, and Kata'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada armed groups.
In the aftermath of the US-Saudi strikes on PMF positions, the IRI released a statement denying involvement in attacks against Saudi Arabia, while vowing that it would respond to the targeting.
The IRI said it would grant Iraqi government bodies "a deadline extending no later than the 23rd of the month of Safar [August 7] to see what actions they will take," adding, "Our response to the American enemy is coming without doubt, and it may reach its instruments in Saudi Arabia whenever circumstances require it."
