ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s premier met with the head of the Saudi General Intelligence Directorate in Baghdad on Friday as Riyadh seeks to ease tensions following Iraqi condemnation of recent airstrikes on Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) bases across the country.
According to the Prime Minister’s media office, the Iraqi premier Ali al-Zaidi received Khalid al-Humaidan and his accompanying delegation, who conveyed a message from the Saudi leadership.
“The message included a renewed invitation for the Prime Minister to visit the capital, Riyadh, in addition to discussing ways to enhance joint coordination and cooperation regarding security developments in the region,” the office noted.
The meeting follows an announcement the week prior in which Iraq's PMF said "at least 20" of its members were killed and "32 others were injured" in joint US-Saudi strikes that targeted a number of the organization's "official headquarters" in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, and five other provinces.
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 Iraqi prime minister's media office said the premier reaffirmed Iraq's “firm position of protecting Iraq's sovereignty and the interests of its people,” adding that the government will not allow Iraqi territory to be used as a staging ground for attacks against other nations, citing constitutional duties and a respect for the sovereignty of neighboring states.
The two sides agreed to continue security coordination and intelligence sharing to address regional threats, strengthen mutual trust, and prevent escalation.
Of note, the Iranian-backed Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) announced earlier on Friday that it had postponed its response to US-Saudi airstrikes on the PMF following a call for restraint by a senior Iraqi Shiite politician, Hadi al-Ameri, head of the influential Badr Organization political and armed group.
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.
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