Iraq PM Makes First Move against Iran's Militias

Iraqi demonstrators take part in an ongoing anti-government protest, in Baghdad, Iraq November 1, 2019. (Reuters)
Iraqi demonstrators take part in an ongoing anti-government protest, in Baghdad, Iraq November 1, 2019. (Reuters)
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Iraq PM Makes First Move against Iran's Militias

Iraqi demonstrators take part in an ongoing anti-government protest, in Baghdad, Iraq November 1, 2019. (Reuters)
Iraqi demonstrators take part in an ongoing anti-government protest, in Baghdad, Iraq November 1, 2019. (Reuters)

Iraqi security forces carried out on Monday the first raid under the tenure of new Prime Minister Mustapha al-Kadhimi, targeting the headquarters of a faction that is loyal to Iran in the southern city of Basra.

The office did not name the faction, but police in Basra said that they shut down the offices of the Thar Allah Islamic Party that has been blamed for opening fire at anti-government protesters, leaving many dead and injured.

Kadhimi's office said that the security forces arrested everyone inside the building and confiscated weapons and ammunition. The detainees will be referred to the judiciary to "receive justice."

Also on Monday, a large poster of slain Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes was removed from near Baghdad airport. The two figures were killed in a US drone strike near the facility in January.

The pro-Iran PMF had previously denied that the poster was removed, saying instead that it was blown away by a recent storm in Baghdad. It later put up a new poster, this time of Muhandes alone.

Later on Monday, Kadhimi vowed that he will crack down on everyone responsible for shedding the blood of the Iraqi people.

In a tweet, he said of the Basra unrest: "We had pledged that those responsible for shedding the blood of Iraqis will not rest easy and we are now fulfilling this pledge." He also defended peaceful protests.

Monday's raid was the first of its kind against any pro-Iran armed faction that is widely suspected of being behind years of assassination of journalists, activists and local rivals.

Head of the Thar Allah Islamic Party, Youssef al-Moussawi, commonly known as "Sayyed Youssef", is among the most notorious militants to take part in the armed conflicts that had taken place in Basra soon after the collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003.



Israeli Likud Party Ministers Urge Netanyahu to Annex West Bank

Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)
Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)
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Israeli Likud Party Ministers Urge Netanyahu to Annex West Bank

Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)
Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)

Cabinet ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party called on Wednesday for Israel to annex the Israeli-occupied West Bank before the Knesset recesses at the end of the month.

They issued a petition ahead of Netanyahu's meeting next week with US President Donald Trump, where discussions are expected to center on a potential 60-day Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas.

The petition was signed by 15 cabinet ministers and Amir Ohana, speaker of the Knesset, Israel's parliament.

There was no immediate response from the prime minister's office. Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, long a confidant of Netanyahu, did not sign the petition. He has been in Washington since Monday for talks on Iran and Gaza.

"We ministers and members of Knesset call for applying Israeli sovereignty and law immediately on Judea and Samaria," they wrote, using the biblical names for the West Bank captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

Their petition cited Israel's recent achievements against both Iran and Iran's allies and the opportunity afforded by the strategic partnership with the US and support of Trump.

It said the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel demonstrated that the concept of Jewish settlement blocs alongside the establishment of a Palestinian state poses an existential threat to Israel.

"The task must be completed, the existential threat removed from within, and another massacre in the heart of the country must be prevented," the petition stated.

Most countries regard Jewish settlements in the West Bank, many of which cut off Palestinian communities from one another, as a violation of international law.

With each advance of Israeli settlements and roads, the West Bank becomes more fractured, further undermining prospects for a contiguous land on which Palestinians could build a sovereign state long envisaged in Middle East peacemaking.

Israel's pro-settler politicians have been emboldened by the return to the White House of Trump, who has proposed Palestinians leave Gaza, a suggestion widely condemned across the Middle East and beyond.