Iraq’s National Security Service said it had thwarted a plot by an “opposition cell” linked to Jamal Mustafa, the son-in-law of late president Saddam Hussein, to assassinate its chief.
But one member of the three-man cell questioned whether it could target a heavily protected senior security official.
The service said in a statement late Friday that its units in Baghdad, under the direct supervision of its head, Abdul Karim al-Basri, had “managed to foil a dangerous criminal plot” by a cell linked to the so-called Iraqi National Gathering for Liberation and Change, which it described as one of the banned Baath Party’s fronts, after intelligence work that included surveillance, tracking and infiltration.
Jamal Mustafa founded the National Gathering, which seeks to change the political system, a few years ago after he was released from custody and left Iraq for a regional country.
US forces arrested Mustafa on April 20, 2003, just 11 days after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s government. He remained in detention until mid-2021, before Iraqi authorities decided to release him in June that year because of insufficient evidence over the charges against him.
The National Security Service statement said “investigations and interrogations revealed that the cell members had moved beyond the stage of incitement and threats to the stage of assignment, target selection and weapons preparation ahead of carrying out assassination operations targeting National Security Service chief Abdul Karim al-Basri, the service’s official spokesman, the Baghdad security director and a number of officers.”
It said that “through a preemptive effort and based on judicial approvals, the service’s units were able to uncover the plot, track its members, arrest those involved and seize evidence and materials linked to the case before it reached the execution stage.”
The statement concluded by saying that “the report presented will include part of the suspects’ confessions, the mechanism of assignment and the planning stages that preceded the foiling of the plot.”
Audio and video recordings released by the service showed calls between the alleged plotters, in which one person speaks about an attempt to assassinate the service chief, while another, who was tasked with carrying it out, denies owning even a single firearm.
In another exchange between the two men, one of them questions whether “only a few people” could carry out a major operation of this kind against “the huge security convoys used by the service commander, Abu Ali al-Basri, and the other targeted officers.”
But in one video clip, one of the men is seen threatening the service’s leaders and declaring his absolute loyalty to Jamal Mustafa.
Drug gang brought down
Alongside the arrest of the “Baathist cell,” the National Security Service announced that two of the most dangerous drug traffickers in the southern province of Maysan had been killed in a special security operation that involved an armed clash with a security force.
The service said in a statement on Saturday that “the operation came as part of continuing efforts to pursue organized crime gangs and drug traffickers. It was carried out in the al-Uzair area of Maysan province and resulted in the killing of two of the most prominent wanted men in this file.”
The statement said one of the men killed was considered the main crystal meth trafficker in Iraq. Known as Abu Fatim, he was wanted by the judiciary under Article 27 of the Anti-Narcotics Law and was classified as one of the country’s most prominent drug distributors.
