Islam Times - Iraqi resistance group threatens to smash Israeli, US facilities in Kurdistan

Islam Times - In an unprecedented move, Iraqi resistance group Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba has threatened to target Israeli positions and US military bases in the country’s northern Kurdistan region.

In a statement on Monday, Akram al-Kaabi, the founder and secretary-general of the movement, warned about launching an offensive on the Israeli and American installations in an area controlled by Masoud Barzani-led Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).

"By hosting the US military bases and the positions of the (Israeli) spy agency Mossad, leaders of the Iraqi Kurdistan region have not only compromised the security of the northern Iraqi people but have also turned the area, infested with spies and occupying forces, into a legitimate target for Iraqi resistance groups," the statement read.

Sabereen News, the media conglomerate affiliated with the resistance factions in Iraq, published the statement, reporting that al-Nujaba's foreign relations unit has threatened Barzani, the veteran Kurdish politician who has been at the helm of KDP since 1979.

A caricature accompanying the statement showed the smiling face of Barzani, with two crows marked as Israel and the US sitting on his head, while he invites other evil crows to his sphere of influence.

It also depicted the commander of the al-Nujaba resistance movement ordering his forces to smash the nests of crows perched atop the Kurdish leader’s head.

KDP has not yet reacted to the statement issued by al-Nujaba.

Last December, Iraqi lawmaker Ali al-Fatlawi said it would be legitimate for the country’s anti-terror resistance groups, which are part of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) or al-Hashd al-Sha’abi, to force US-led military forces to withdraw from the Arab country.

He said the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq was non-negotiable, especially as former Iraqi premier Adel Abdul-Mahdi had asked for it and the parliament also passed a resolution calling for the full withdrawal of the occupying forces.

After Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in mid-March launched a strike on Mossad’s secret facility in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan region, al-Kaabi said the fact that the region “provides Mossad agents with refuge” makes it legitimate for any party to target the “Zionist spies.”

The Erbil operation targeted the “lair of the Zionists” who have “taken refuge with a famous family to carry out their mercenary operations,” he said, referring to the Barzani family, which has dominated Iraqi Kurdistan's politics for decades.

In leaked audio in late March, Barzani had warned of a potential attack on Iraqi resistance groups by armed forces affiliated to the Iraqi Kurdistan region, over a phone call with Mohammed Al Halbousi, Iraq's Parliament Speaker.

His comment came after a KDP office in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad was set on fire on March 28 by loyalists of Iraq's top Shia religious cleric, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Al-Sistani.

Angry protesters took to the streets and torched the KDP office following a tweet by a former KDP parliamentary candidate, Naif Jardo Ahmed Al-Gargari, criticizing and insulting the top cleric.