Conflict-weary Iraq weighs Syria intervention as rebels advance

By Timour Azhari

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Iraqi Shi’ite Muslim ruling events and armed teams are weighing the professionals and cons of armed intervention in Syria, viewing as a grave risk the advance of Sunni Islamist rebels who’ve taken two Syrian cities and now bear down on a 3rd. 

Baghdad has a darkish historical past with Syria-based Sunni fighters, hundreds of whom crossed into Iraq after the 2003 U.S. invasion and fuelled years of sectarian killing earlier than returning once more in 2013 as Islamic State to beat a 3rd of the nation.

The Syrian rebels advancing in Syria right this moment, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, have disavowed Al Qaeda and IS and say they haven’t any ambitions in Iraq, however ruling factions have little belief in these assertions.

Baghdad has amassed on its border with Syria hundreds of fighters from its standard army in addition to the Common Mobilization Forces (PMF), a safety company containing many Iran-aligned armed teams that beforehand fought in Syria.

The orders to date are to defend Iraq’s western flank, quite than to intervene to assist Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in keeping with an Iraqi Shi’ite politician, a authorities adviser and an Arab diplomat briefed on the matter.

However the calculation may change, no less than for some Iraqi factions, relying on developments, together with if the rebels take the foremost Syrian metropolis of Homs, if Assad falls, or if Shi’ites are persecuted, the sources stated. 

Reuters beforehand reported that lots of of Iraqi fighters had crossed into Syria to assist bolster Assad’s forces, becoming a member of Iraqi and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters already within the nation, however there has not but been a mass-mobilization from Iraq.

“The Iraqi authorities’s stance from the start has been that Iraq just isn’t a aspect on this disaster,” stated Falih al-Fayadh, chief of the PMF in a televised speech on Friday. 

“However it’s not sensible for there to be a hearth in your neighbour’s home whilst you sleep reassured with out pondering of what would possibly occur,” he stated.

SUDANI SEEKS TO AVOID REGIONAL CONFLICT

Led by a coalition of principally Shi’ite political events and armed teams near Iran, Iraq is a serious participant in Tehran’s so-called Axis of Resistance that features Hamas in Gaza and Lebanese Hezbollah. 

Israeli onslaughts have closely impaired the latter two gamers, main some analysts to evaluate that the tens of hundreds of hardened fighters in Iraq’s armed formations are actually the power in Iran’s community of allies best-placed to intervene in Syria. 

However the nation’s authorities, led by reasonable Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, has tried desperately to keep away from being dragged into spiralling regional battle, as a substitute making an attempt to give attention to rebuilding after many years of struggle. 

The ruling coalition is commonly pulled in numerous instructions, with some teams that fought alongside Assad up to now and have pursuits in Syria extra a fan of coming into once more, whereas different events see such an intervention as destabilising. 

Iraqi International Minister Fuad Hussein met with Syrian International Minister Bassam Sabbagh in Baghdad on Wednesday, saying that Iraq considered developments in Syria with grave concern. 

The chief of the Syrian rebels, Abu Mohammad al-Golani, himself started his preventing profession with Al Qaeda in Iraq, the place he was imprisoned by the U.S., earlier than shifting to Syria to arrange the extremist group’s franchise there. 

Golani cut up from Al Qaeda in 2016 and on Thursday urged Sudani to stop the PMF from intervening in Syria, saying in a video posted on-line that the rebels needed to have strategic and financial ties to Iraq as soon as they toppled Assad’s regime.

“They could declare to be in a special temper and a special group, however they very a lot look the identical from Iraq,” the federal government adviser stated.