While the Iraqi government, still reeling from the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS), is trying to avoid being dragged into a US-Iran conflict, one Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), also known as Hashd al-Shaabi, leader said the group will stand with Iran against the US in a war.
"The Americans are currently here in Iraq...If I go to my religious conviction, the Americans are all hostages to the resistance factions if there is a war because we will stand by the Islamic Republic,” Secretary General of the Kataib Sayid al-Shuhada PMF group Abu Ala al-Wallai told the Iraqi television channel al-Dijla on Wednesday.
Wallai said there are other countries and entities he would also side with against the US.
"If a fight breaks out between Satan and America, I will stand by Satan because America is the biggest Satan,” he said.
He even went so far as to say he would side with Iran’s arch enemy Saudi Arabia should the US ally somehow find itself in a war with the US.
“If a fight breaks out between Saudi Arabia and America, I will support Saudi Arabia,” said Wallai.
Wallai spoke amidst a controversy in Iraq surrounding mysterious explosions at PMF installations throughout the country since July. The deputy head of PMF commission Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis soon blamed Israel and the US for the attacks.
Israel has long struck Iranian targets in Syria as part of the conflict between the Islamic Republican and the Jewish state, while US tensions with Iran are at a high following the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and several security incidents in the Persian Gulf this year.
"We don't distinguish between Americans or Israelis,” said Wallai on Wednesday, claiming Israel has breached Iraqi airspace 76 times since the start of 2019.
There are more than 5,000 American troops stationed in Iraq. There are also American government personnel, as well as oil workers, journalists, teachers and other US citizens in the country.
Iraq’s prime minister, president, and speaker of the parliament have said they want to protect the PMF from attacks, but that it also does not wish to get dragged into a proxy war.
Under pressure from Washington, in a bid to gain more control over the PMF, Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi ordered all PMF units to come under the control of the army on July 1.
Iraq has not blamed anyone directly for the airstrikes. The US has twice denied targeting the PMF in the country. Israel, on the other hand, has hinted that it will target Iran wherever it is, and has not denied attacking the group in Iraq.
Wallai said the PMF is prepared to fight back against the attacks on its sites.
“For me the easiest thing...is to have drones in the air, with the same weapons and even more than them, and hit the embassy and all their military bases,” he said.
Al-Wallai, however, said he does not want Iraq to be plunged into war.
"We don't want for Iraq to be a battlefield,” he said. “There are no winners in wars.”
The PMF was founded by a religious decree in 2014 to fight against ISIS. Most of the groups in the PMF consist of Shiite Muslims, and many receive support from Iran.
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