Alwaght- The Saudi and Emirati spy agencies are directly running elements of the ISIS terrorist group, a senior leader of the Iraqi Kata'ib Hezbollah said.
“The intelligence services of Saudi Arabia and the UAE directly run ISIS elements. This is obvious to the relevant services,” Abu Ali al-Askari said via his Twitter account on Sunday evening.
He made the remarks after 13 Iraqi policemen were killed and three wounded in a ISIS terrorist attack against a checkpoint near Iraq’s northern city of Kirkuk.
In a separate attack on Sunday, at least three Iraqi soldiers were killed and one wounded when ISIS terrorists targeted an army checkpoint southeast of the Iraqi city of Mosul.
“Those who are negligent in this regard are complicit in these crimes ... The commanders of Hashd al-Sha'abi (PMF) must take charge, especially in the northern regions,” al-Askari said, using the Arabic name of the Popular Mobilization Units, which is the largest coalition of Iraqi resistance groups that played a key role in Iraq’s 2017 victory against ISIS.
He then cautioned forces of the PMU to beware of the conspiracies hatched by the United States and Israel.
Al-Askari also asked Yemen’s Ansarullah resistance movement to attack Saudi Arabia and target its infrastructure, especially the country’s energy resources, which are the main financial source of sponsoring criminal groups.
In a large-scale operation on Saturday, the Yemeni armed forces, run by Ansarullah, used 16 drones and ballistic missiles to hit targets deep inside Saudi Arabia
The attacks targeted vital facilities, including Saudi Aramco facilities in Ras al-Tanura, Jeddah, Jizan and Najran regions.
Top PMF commander 'martyred'
The PMF announced in a statement on Sunday that the deputy commander of its al-Jazeera operation has been "martyred".
Hassan Karim Hassan was killed in a blast caused by an explosive device in the al-Owaisat area north of Jurf al-Nasr, Babil Governorate, the resistance movement said, adding that two of his companions were wounded in the explosion.
“This treacherous and cowardly operation by the ISIS terrorist remnants highlights the need to continue security efforts to uproot terrorism in the Jurf al-Nasr district,” the statement read.
The PMU also pledged to continue to strike the positions of the terrorists and to offer more sacrifices for the safety, security and stability of the Arab country.
ISIS seized swaths of Iraq in a lightning offensive in 2014, before being defeated by a campaign led by the Iraqi government, which included the PMU forces, in late 2017.
However, the terrorist group still has sleeper cells that have increased attacks against Iraqi forces in recent months.
Iraqi resistance forces argue that the ISIS attacks are supported and used by the United States to prolong its stay in the country amid growing calls on the government to push them out of Iraq.
Resistance forces have also vowed not to lay down their arms or cease their struggle until the expulsion of all American troops.
A piece of legislation passed in the Iraqi parliament in early 2020 demanded the expulsion of all US-led foreign forces from the country, days after the US military assassinated Iran’s top anti-terror commander Qassem Soleimani and PMF’s deputy commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
‘Iraq’s stability rests on US withdrawal’
A senior member of Iraq’s al-Fatah parliamentary coalition said on Sunday that the stability of Iraq depends on the withdrawal of American forces from the country.
“The American forces are the destabilizing factor in Iraq,” Uday al-Khudran told Iraq’s Arabic-language al-Maalomah news agency, pointing out that Iraq will never achieve stability as long as US forces are in the country.
“They seek to cause tensions in the country through their intervention and support for terrorist groups,” he added.
Khudran stated that Iraq has powerful forces, including the PMU, to protect itself against threats posed by the terrorists.
Every time the issue of US withdrawal is raised, violent attacks occur in the country, which are like messages trying to mislead public opinion on the importance of the American forces, he said.
“But the truth is that Washington is involved in them,” the Iraqi figure added.
