After the bloodiest week in Iraq in 3 years, fears have escalated following the leak of a security document warning of killings in Baghdad.
And a leaked security document released by the Baghdad Operational Command yesterday, Friday, revealed that “illegal” armed groups were carrying out killings in the Iraqi capital.
According to the same document, which was released by Iraqi media, the planned killings would take place in “vehicles with shaded numbers or motorcycles carrying more than one person.”
However, the leaked security document does not reveal the Iraqi figures who are the targets of the expected killings, or even the armed groups that plan to carry them out.
The Baghdad Operational Command is one of 9 such commands that make up the Iraqi Joint Operational Command, which in turn is a collaboration of several Iraqi military institutions to manage and coordinate military operations in Iraq and was established in 2007.
street boiling
Security concerns are rising as protests escalate after Tishreen stepped into the line of conflict between the Sadrist movement and the Coordination Framework.
Two days after the end of the protests and the sit-in by the two sides of the conflict, the “Sadrists and Ramka”, the coordinating movements of the “October protests” called for central demonstrations in the capital, Baghdad, in response to poor general conditions and the persistence of the political crisis caused by the elections in early October , and its consequences.
On Friday afternoon, hundreds of protesters gathered in Nisour Square, west of the capital Baghdad, and put forward slogans for change, presented by banners bearing the unequivocal slogan “Iran will not rule over us.”
The demonstrators, who appeared angry and outraged at what was happening in Iraq, denounced the political subordination and demonstration of sovereignty to regional and international will.
The dissolution of the current Iraqi parliament and the holding of early legislative elections has been a constant demand, but demonstrators in Baghdad have demanded that certain provisions of the constitution and electoral law be amended in such a way as to ensure that copies of the consensus and quotas are not repeated in future governments.
It is noteworthy that the head of the Sadrist movement, Muqtada al-Sadr, a few days after the storming of the presidential district in Baghdad by his supporters in July last year, called for the dissolution of the parliament and entrusting this task to the judiciary, as well as to achieve an early election.
Many political forces expressed solidarity with these demands, with the exception of some structures included in the coordination structure, which al-Sadr called the “sinister trinity.”
These demands have exacerbated a difficult situation between the two sides of the Shia conflict, leading to armed clashes in the presidential district late last month that ended in the deaths and injuries of dozens of people, forcing al-Sadr to call on his supporters to back off and stop the peaceful protests.
The demands of the demonstrators in Al-Nusour Square are similar to those of Al-Sadr’s recent calls, but they go further, condemning all political forces operating on the ground and holding them responsible for the current situation.
The Iraqi security service is in an unenviable position between a massive security operation for demonstrators and the terrorist organization ISIS’ attacks against its forces, most recently in Anbar province in western Iraq on Friday.
ISIS frequently uses open, rugged terrain as hideouts and secret headquarters to plan and carry out attacks in exchange for Iraqi forces’ continuous military operations to harass terrorist cells.
The political scene in Iraq has been complicated since October last year, but divisions between the parties have reached the point of fighting in the capital Baghdad amid warnings that ISIS is capitalizing on an escalating political conflict.
