The Iranian-backed Shiite militia in Iraq, Kataib Hezbollah, warned this week that it would attack American bases there as well as other American locations in the Middle East if the United States supported Israel in its fight against Hamas militants.
Iranian TV station PressTV quotes Abu Hussein al-Hamidawi, who calls himself “Secretary-General of the Hezbollah Brigades,” as saying, “Our missiles, drones, and specialized forces are prepared to… attack the American enemy in its headquarters and disrupt its goals if it gets involved in this battle.”
Hezbollah in Iraq, which is not the same as the terrorist group Hezbollah in Lebanon, has an “obligation to remain in solidarity alongside the Palestinians,” according to Hamidawi. He praised the people who killed Israeli citizens as part of Hamas.
According to PressTV, Akram al-Kaabi, a militant leader from Iraq and a member of Harakat Hezbollah Nujaba, echoed Hamidawi’s warning and threatened a “military retaliation” (a terrorist attack) towards any country that helps Israel.
“If they (the Americans) get involved, we will get involved,” Hadi al-Amiri, the leader of the Badr Organization, said. “We’ll regard all American targets as legitimate.”
Of note, PressTV characterized the horrors of Saturday as nothing more than an act of “Palestinian Hamas resistance movements,” attacking the “occupying regime” with a “surprise strike named Operation al-Aqsa Storm.” The Iranian news outlets didn’t say anything about the horrible things Hamas was doing, like raping and killing children.
Basim al-Awadi, a spokesperson for the Iraqi government, agreed, saying that Hamas’s bad behavior could be seen as a reaction to “longstanding oppression caused by the Zionist rule.”
Awadi said, “We ask for an urgently needed Arab League meeting to discuss the Palestinian situation and also urge the world to step in to restore Palestinian rights while warning against violence that could make the region less stable.”
Irrespective Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for “large-scale protests and war against Israel,” and Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid said he fully supported the Palestinians and didn’t say anything bad about Hamas’s horrible deeds.
Rashid said on Saturday, “We are reiterating Iraq’s firm stance on the Palestinian matter, which clearly shows our full support for the Palestinian populace in their fight for all of what are their rightful as well as legitimate rights.”
“The terrible acts of violence against the Palestinian people are condemned by us. We beg the rest of the world to live up to its moral and legal duties so that justice can be done and the Palestinian people’s rights are protected,” he said.
Hamidawi’s group, Kataib Hezbollah (KH), is one of the biggest Shiite militias in Iraq that is controlled by Iran. It was the first Iraqi Shiite force that the U.S. government called a foreign terrorist group in 2009.
Along with Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s terror group, KH led a series of missile assaults on American sites in Iraq in the latter part of 2019 killing an American non-military contractor. KH also played a big role in Soleimani’s failed plan to launch an assault on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
4 Comments