The Iraqi parliament investigates claims of warnings before US-Saudi strikes on Iraqi faction headquarters amid allegations of security failures.
Iraqi sources said the circumstances surrounding the US-Saudi strikes on the headquarters of Iraqi factions, which took place at the end of last month, remain unclear after statements circulated claiming that senior Iraqi leaders had advanced information of the strikes.
This prompted the Iraqi parliament’s Security and Defence Committee to seek an investigation into the circumstances and host senior leaders of the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) and prominent security officials to establish the facts and determine the details.
This strikes have set of growing repercussions, as well as doubts and questions raised in recent days about the security precautionary measures taken before the PMF headquarters were targeted and whether there had been any particular failure.
The committee, headed by MP Khalid al-Obeidi, issued an official letter inviting senior security and military officials, including PMF chief Falih al-Fayyadh and Chief of Staff Abdul Aziz al-Muhammadawi, known as Abu Fadak.
Those invited also include the director of the office of the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Abdul Amir al-Shammari; the army chief of staff, Abdul Amir Yarallah; and the senior Interior Ministry undersecretary, Hussein al-Awadi.
The letter stated that they would appear today at the committee’s headquarters in the parliament building to determine why precautionary and security measures were not taken and why the headquarters was evacuated before the attack.
According to a member of the parliamentary committee, “The request to establish the facts and the attendance of the requested leaders came following accusations and statements that there had been advance information before the attack and that there had been a failure to perform the duty and evacuate the faction headquarters.”
The member told The New Arab, on condition of anonymity, that “the committee is primarily focused on determining whether advance information about the strikes had reached the relevant agencies, which parties possessed it, and why urgent and decisive measures were not taken to address the situation before the airstrikes took place.”
“The committee is carefully following the sequence of available intelligence information and the security measures that preceded the strikes to determine responsibilities and establish whether there were specific security gaps in the exchange of information and its intelligence verification and identify the parties or individuals responsible for this failure,” the member added.
“Hosting the leaders and security officials will provide the committee with an opportunity to compare their statements with the information available to them,” the source said, further stressing that “the hearings are part of an investigation that is not limited to determining the circumstances of the strike but also traces the information and establishes whether precautionary measures could have been taken in advance that might have prevented the casualties or reduced them.”
The Iraqi government has repeatedly denied having prior knowledge of the strikes, but MPs and politicians have accused PMF leaders of possessing advance information about the targeting and failing to take sufficient precautions.
This has pushed the issue into a sensitive political arena that goes beyond the immediate security aspect.
Meanwhile, the PMF, which include the factions targeted in the strikes, rejected accusations against its chief, Falih al-Fayyadh, and claims that he had prior information about attacks on the headquarters and failed to inform the military units.
It described the accusations as “baseless claims that are not supported by any evidence or fact”.
In a previous statement, the force said that “since the events in the region began months ago and until today, all its forces have been placed on alert, and two days before the strikes, all units were informed of the need to exercise the utmost caution and vigilance, which contributed to saving many lives and reducing the scale of the losses”.
It said that “the fourth regiment of the 30th Brigade of the Popular Mobilisation did not take all the required preventive measures, resulting in the deaths of the largest number of its personnel during the attacks.”
A sensitive issue
For his part, Iraqi political affairs specialist and academic Basim al-Azzawi said the issue was highly sensitive and that conflicting statements between accusations and denials involved political considerations.
He told TNA that “some parties may seek to use the issue of the strikes to achieve political gains, particularly given the sensitivity of the issue and its implications.”
“The importance of the investigation lies in its ability to distinguish between security information and political responsibility and determine whether the failure, if established, resulted from weaknesses in the warning and information-sharing system, individual negligence by certain figures, or a broader failure in the management of the security issue,” he added.
Iraqi official: PMF are part of armed forces
On Saturday, Iraqi Security Media Cell chief Lt Gen Saad Maan said that “the PMF are part of the armed forces and that the decision to restrict weapons to the state targets entities operating outside the framework of the security institutions.”
Maan made the remarks to the official Iraqi News Agency, INA.
“The PMF are part of the Iraqi armed forces, and their personnel are subject to the applicable military laws,” he said.
He explained that “the entities covered by the restriction of weapons are those operating outside the framework of the state’s security institutions”.
“The PMF are part of the Iraqi armed forces, and under Law No. 40 of 2016, all its personnel are subject to the applicable military laws,” Maan added.
He said that “the decision to restrict weapons to the state is intended to affirm that there is no parallel leadership or other leadership using weapons outside the framework of the state”.
Sources inside the PMF in Iraq said on Wednesday, 12 August, that major changes are expected within the force, including the replacement of its current chief, Falih al-Fayyadh, who has been at this post since being formally appointed in 2020.
The changes also include the replacement of PMF Chief of Staff Abdul Aziz al-Muhammadawi, known as Abu Fadak.
He emerged publicly and assumed his post after his predecessor, Jamal Jaafar, known as Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, was assassinated by a US airstrike in January 2020.
The sources added to TNA that the changes are the first steps towards further integrating the PMF into Iraq’s regular security and military system amid US pressure to restrict the weapons of Iran-aligned factions that are incorporated into and funded by the PMF itself.
Article translated from Arabic by Afrah Almatwari. To read the original, click here.
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