Middle East
Influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in Najaf, Iraq on August 30, 2022. File photo: Anmar Khalil/AP
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq's powerful cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Thursday called on the Iraqi government to prevent any “interference” from its territories in the escalating Syrian conflict, as the nation ramps up security on its western border.
“We still maintain our position of non-interference in Syrian affairs and refrain from standing against the decisions of the [Syrian] people, as they are the only ones concerned with determining their fate,” said Sadr in a statement.
“It must also be noted that it is necessary for Iraq, its government and people; and all parties, militias and security forces, not to interfere in Syria affairs, as some of them have done in the past. Rather, the government must prevent them from doing so,” he added.
The Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, whose forces have defeated the Syrian army, which enjoys strong ties with Iraq, in Aleppo and Hama provinces in recent days, on Thursday called on Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani not to allow Iraqi armed groups to get involved in their ongoing war against the Syrian regime, claiming that his fighters will not pose a threat to Iraq’s national security.
The PMF is a former paramilitary umbrella group of predominantly Shiite armed forces that was established in 2014 following a fatwa in response to the Islamic State (ISIS) attack. It has been embedded in Iraq's security apparatus. They are officially under the rule of Sudani as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces but sometimes they do not follow his orders.
A coalition of Syrian rebels led by the HTS launched a blistering offensive against the Syrian army over the past week. They took control of the northern city of Aleppo, the most populated city in the country, and later advanced their offensive into the strategic central Hama province, capturing the city on Thursday with the Syrian army announcing its withdrawal.
Baghdad views instability in Syria as a direct threat to its own security, especially given concerns over terrorist activities on the two countries’ shared 600-kilometer border.
On Thursday, a joint force from the Iraqi army and PMF in the western Anbar province headed to the Syrian border to enforce the border with Syria.
HTS is the former Syrian branch of al-Qaeda and the prominent force among dozens of rebel factions in the northwest. The group has long controlled a rebel enclave in the northwestern province of Idlib.
It has been internationally recognized as a terrorist organization.
Syrians rose against the Assad regime in 2011, leading to a full-scale civil war that has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, left millions more in dire need of humanitarian assistance, and left much of the country’s infrastructure in ruins.
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