Save the Homeland MPs claim they were subject of an assassination attempt
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Three MPs from the Save the Homeland Alliance on Monday night claimed they were subjected to a failed assassination attempt in Baghdad, with one of the MPs implying that the offense was carried out in order to persuade them away from the alliance, however a source from Baghdad police told Rudaw English via phone on Wednesday that no complaints were filed.
Sovereignty Alliance MP Mohammed al-Dolimi, and Sadrist bloc MPs Ali al-Saaeidi and Hussam al-Saaeidi alleged they were shot at in the Rashidiya district in northern Baghdad, which left them unharmed, Mohammed al-Dolimi claimed on his Facebook.
"Representative Mohammed al-Dolimi, Representative Ali al-Saaeidi and Representative Hussam al-Saaeidi survived an assassination attempt in the Rashidiya area north of Baghdad," Mohammed al-Dolimi said.
A lawyer close to Mohammed al-Dolimi, Qutaiba Adnan, told Rudaw's Hemin Baban over the phone on Tuesday that the three MPs "faced an assassination attempt, but all 3 MPs and their guards and chauffeurs were unharmed."
One of the MPs, Ali al-Saaeidi, implied in a post that the attack was made to steer them away from the alliance. “The bullets of treachery will not deter us from following the path of reform that His Eminence the Leader, Muqtada al-Sadr (may God honor him) planned to save the country.”
The claims come at a time of major political deadlock in Iraq, caused by disagreements between the different parliamentary blocs over the formation of a new government.
The Coordination Framework, a pro-Iran Shiite parliamentary faction, and their allies insist on the formation of a government based on political consensus, an idea which has been repeatedly opposed by Save the Homeland Alliance, consisting of the the Sadrist bloc, the Sunni Sovereignty Alliance, and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), who are attempting to form a national majority government.
The leader of the Sadrist Movement Muqtada al-Sadr announced on Thursday that he will be stepping back from the government formation process temporarily, allowing the “obstructing third” to hold negotiations with all political parties around forming a national majority government, referring to pro-Iran political parties and their allies who have so-far boycotted parliamentary sessions in a bid to prevent Sadr and his Sunni and Kurdish allies from creating a majority at the legislature.