ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The United Nations said Wednesday that the new developments in the Middle East conflict could get “into a much worse situation” following US-Saudi airstrikes on Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) that resulted in dozens of deaths and injuries.
“The one thing we don't want to see is again is any expansion of the conflict,” Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, told Rudaw’s Namo Abdulla during a press briefing, noting that “having the fighting spread to a larger number of countries, all of these are adverse developments and could get us into a much worse situation even than before.”
The remarks follow joint US-Saudi airstrikes on PMF headquarters across Iraq in the early hours of Wednesday, which the PMF announced an initial total of 20 deaths and 32 injuries across Baghdad, Kirkuk, Nineveh, Karbala, Diyala, Wasit, and Basra provinces, marking the first wide scale attack on PMF since the US and Iran entered a negotiation period following the war, which started in late February.
The strikes followed two consecutive days of alleged attacks targeting eastern Saudi oil facilities, which Riyadh claimed were launched from Iraqi territories.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI), an umbrella group of Iran-aligned factions, reiterated in a statement on Wednesday that it had not carried out the attacks on Saudi Arabia, warning that it will respond.
The group said it is granting Iraqi government bodies that have called on the resistance to disarm "a deadline extending no later than the 23rd of the month of Safar (August 7), to see what actions they will take."
