MIDDLE EAST Iraq is also in turmoil in the shadow of Haniyeh’s assassination

At the same time that the head of Hamas’ political bureau was being eliminated, the United States was carrying out a raid against local pro-Iranian militias. Tehran has called on the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces to participate in the table where the “retaliation” is being planned. Haniyeh was buried in Doha, Qatar.

Milan (/Agencies) – While the entire Middle East is watching with concern the threat of a response from Tehran to the operation that killed the head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismaii Haniyeh, tensions are also rising again in Iraq. At the same time that Israel killed the top leader of the Palestinian movement and killed Fuad Shukr, one of Hezbollah’s top military commanders, in Beirut, US troops in Iraq carried out a raid in Babil against the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), the local pro-Iranian militia, killing four people. The action came after the resumption of rocket attacks against the Ain al-Asad base, where US troops are concentrated in the western Iraqi province of Anbar.

The US military initiative was greeted with irritation in Baghdad. “The Iraqi government will file a legal complaint with the United Nations Security Council and international organisations,” Sabhan Mula Chyad, political adviser to Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani, told the local news agency. Rudaw“They targeted part of the Iraqi security forces,” he said, adding that the action was decided without the approval of the Iraqi government, and could affect cooperation in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS), which has reared its head in the region in the shadow of the conflict in Gaza.

The phase opened by the elimination of Haniyeh in Tehran could therefore have profound repercussions also in Iraq, where Baghdad has long questioned the permanence of US forces on its territory. According to sources cited by the agency Reutersthe Popular Mobilization Forces – together with the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Yemeni Houthis – have also been summoned to Tehran to the table where the Iranian “response” to Israeli actions is being planned. And it is worth remembering that already last January Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, had been the target of Tehran’s missile attack in the “harsh response” to the Kerman massacre that had taken place a few days earlier, precisely during the commemoration of the assassination of the head of the Revolutionary Guard Qasem Soleimani.

Following a funeral in Tehran yesterday, Haniyeh was buried today in Doha, Qatar, where Hamas’ political bureau is headquartered and where he had lived since 2019. Qatar is therefore a key focus of negotiations for the release of the hostages and a ceasefire in Gaza, and yesterday US President Joe Biden – in his first high-profile comment after this death – said that the operation that removed Haniyeh from the scene “has not been helpful.”