The warning came after Jawad al-Talibawi, a commander of the Iran-backed Asaib ahl al-Haq (AAH) militia, said an AAH member had been arrested in connection with a rocket attacking Baghdad’s Green Zone, a heavily fortified part of the city that houses foreign diplomatic missions as well as Iraqi government offices. Talibawi also accused security services of interfering in the rocket attack investigation.
Abu Ali al-Askari, security official for the Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah, warned in a statement released Saturday that relations with other “resistance” factions were strong.
“Whoever touches them, touches us,” he said on Twitter – though he condemned recent rocket and IED attacks of past days on US and US-allied military and diplomatic targets as being “only in the interest of our enemy”.
Askari called on Iraqi PM Kadhimi “not to test the patience of the resistance,” and threatened that the time was right to cut off his ears, ”same as you cut off a goat’s.”
Accounts linked to AAH published video clips on Friday of a group of masked gunmen who describe themselves as the "Islamic Resistance" moving through the streets of Baghdad and confirming that they are waiting for a "signal" from Khazali to carry out attacks "against America's agents" – without identifying them.
Hours later, Kadhimi’s media office shared footage of the Iraqi premier making a rare visit to the streets of Baghdad, flanked by security force members.
“We affirm the right of the resistance to end the presence of American military forces,” Qais al-Khazali, leader of AAH tweeted the next day.
Calls by AAH, Kataib Hezbollah and other Iran-backed militias for the US to withdraw its remaining troops from Iraq grew louder after the assassination of top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad at the very beginning of 2020.
Askari accused Kadhimi, who was head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service at the time of complicity in the assassination.
A secret directive by the US Department of Defense ordered commanders in March to plan for a campaign to destroy Kataib Hezbollah, which threatened and carried out rocket attacks against US forces.
There have been consistent rocket attacks on US military and diplomatic targets since, as well as IED attacks on US-led Coalition-led convoys carrying weaponry to and from bases under Iraqi security force control.
Iran-backed militias announced in October that they would suspend attacks on American targets in Iraq, on the condition that US troops withdraw from the country.
The ceasefire was broken a month later, when rockets hit Baghdad’s Green Zone. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, which was condemned by Kataib Hezbollah as “idiocy”.
In his Saturday statement, AAH leader Khazali said the Iraqi state’s prestige must be preserved by “not targeting diplomatic missions.”
The Iraqi PM called last Sunday’s rocket attack on Baghdad’s Green Zone a “cowardly, terrorist move”, and said a number of suspects had been arrested.
Washington accused Iran and its affiliated groups in Iraq of being behind the rocket attacks targeting US interests.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held Iran-backed groups responsible for “flagrantly and recklessly” targeting the US embassy on Sunday, saying they must “cease their destabilizing actions.”
Trump also blamed Iran for the latest attack. Iranian foreign minister Mohammed Javad Zarif in response said “putting your own citizens at risk abroad won't divert attention from catastrophic failures at home”.
