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News ID: 86840
Publish Date : 23 January 2021 - 21:49
Issues Warning to Foreign Sponsors

Nujaba: Daesh Plans to Attack Karbala, Najaf

BAGHAD (Dispatches) -- Iraq’s Harakat al-Nujaba resistance group on Saturday warned about plots by Daesh to carry out attacks in Baghdad, and holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, warning the regimes believed to be supporting the takfiri group that they risk dragging the terrorist sedition into their own lands.
Nasr al-Shammari, the spokesman for Al-Nujaba which is part of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) or Hashd al-Sha’abi, said in a televised interview with Iraq’s Aletejah TV that the movement has information that Daesh is planning more attacks after its Thursday twin bombing in Baghdad.  
"Daesh is seeking to target Najaf, Karbala and the capital. Terrorists are currently preparing two suicide vehicles in the Baghdad belt area. Of the five suicide bombers, only two blew themselves up and three others are still alive,” he said.
On Thursday, Daesh carried out two simultaneous bombings in the Iraqi capital, which claimed the lives of at least 32 people and wounded 110 others in a crowded marketplace.
The first attacker drew a crowd at the bustling market in the capital’s Tayaran Square by claiming to feel sick and then detonated his explosives belt, while the second attacker set off his explosives after more people flocked to the scene to help the victims.
Al-Shammari said Al-Nujaba had information proving that Daesh is regrouping. "We … have intelligence of that and we are ready to cooperate with the security apparatus to foil the plot,” he said.
The terrorists, he said, are attempting to reach Karbala through the Al-Anbar desert.
"One of the two suicide bombers of the recent operation had infiltrated into our territory from the Syrian border, right from the point where, in a seemingly deliberate act, Iraqi units had been moved.”
Al-Shammari said Iraq’s security and the protection of Iraqi people’s lives are "our red line,” threatening to bring the war into the land of "those who want to set fire to Iraq.”
The Thursday attack drew a wave of condemnations in Iraq and elsewhere, with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi promising that "our response to those who shed innocent Iraqi blood will be bold and earth-shattering, and the evil leaders of Daesh will face a force to be reckoned with”.
Iraq’s Kata’ib Hezbollah resistance group, part of the PMU, blamed the "axis of evil” – namely Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and the occupying regime of Israel – for the bombings, warning Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman that he will pay the price for supporting such plots.
"The Zionist, American, and Saudi evil bands have restarted their filthy criminal acts against the children of the Iraqi nation by committing an ugly crime, which targeted a marketplace full of poor Iraqis,” the group said in a statement.
Another Iraqi group blamed Saudi Arabia and the UAE, warning that the Iraqi fighters will not remain indifferent in the face of such crimes.
The fingerprints of the Al Saud and Al Nahyan regimes are evident in the attacks, said Saad al-Saadi, a member of the Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq movement.
The group’s spokesman, Jawad Al-Talibawi, said Saudi Arabia "has once again mobilized its agents to shed the blood of the Iraqi nation after former U.S. President Donald Trump’s criminal role came to an end in Iraq”.
Last week, Lebanon’s Al-Mayadeen TV network reported that the U.S. military had transferred Daesh prisoners to the Iraqi-Syrian border.
American forces used choppers to relocate the Daesh inmates from prisons in Hasakah province in northeast Syria to the Iraqi border, it said.
Daesh has intensified its terrorist attacks in Iraq since January 2020, when the United States assassinated top Iranian anti-terror commander General Qassem Soleimani and PMU’s deputy commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis outside Baghdad airport.
Iraq declared victory over Daesh in December 2017 after a three-year counter-terrorism military campaign, which had the crucial support of Iran.
Since the U.S. assassination, the terrorist group has stepped up its sporadic attacks across Iraq, attempting to regroup and expand its bases.
Nouri al-Maliki, the former Iraqi prime minister and current head of State of Law coalition, called for a comprehensive investigation into the terrorist attacks to determine whether they are supported from or planned abroad.
In a post on his Twitter account Friday, he also called for severe punishment for any military and security officials who are found guilty of negligence.