BAGHDAD (Dispatches) -- Iraqi lawmakers are seeking to block Syria’s self-proclaimed leader Abu Muhammad al-Jolani from visiting Baghdad next month for the Arab League Summit, citing his past role as a commander in Al-Qaeda, which carried out hundreds of terror attacks against Iraqi civilians following the 2003 U.S. invasion.  
The Media Line published a leaked document on Sunday showing a request from Iraq’s parliament to arrest Jolani for terrorism and document forgery should he enter Iraq for the summit. 
The letter was issued by Iraq’s Council of Representatives and sent to the Office of the Public Prosecutor in Baghdad. It urges an investigation and potential arrest of Jolani should he enter Iraqi territory. 
An invitation to attend the 17 May summit was recently extended to Jolani by Iraqi Prime Minister Muhammad Shia al-Sudani. 
“Yes, a formal invitation has been delivered to him, and he is welcome to attend and participate in the Arab Summit,” Sudani told The National’s Editor-in-Chief Mina al-Oraibi during a discussion at the Sulaymaniyah Forum on Wednesday. 
Following the event, a picture leaked of an unannounced meeting between Sudani and Jolani that took place in Qatar on Tuesday, sparking anger among Iraqi political factions and resistance groups. 
Over 50 Iraqi politicians also signed a request Saturday asking
 the speaker of parliament to issue a block on Jolani entering the country “for the sake of the martyrs, their families, the wounded, the Iraqi people and the principles,” The National reported on Sunday. 
Iraqi MP Falih al-Khazali said in response to the invitation for Jolani to visit Baghdad that “Iraq is the center of Arab dialogue; we will not allow Baghdad to become a safe haven for the terrorist Jolani. The blood of the martyrs has not dried yet.” 
According to Syrian state media, the meeting between Jolani and Sudani in Qatar addressed the issue of joint border security, with both sides agreeing to strengthen field and intelligence coordination between the relevant authorities to counter shared threats. 
On Saturday, Secretary-General of the Popular Mobilization Forces’ (PMF) Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Qais al-Khazali, said in a statement that it is “necessary for there to be an immediate arrest of the individual in question,” in light of the existence of an arrest warrant against him. 
The two leaders also discussed ways to revitalize trade, ease the movement of goods and people through shared border crossings, encourage mutual investment, and cooperate in the fields of energy, transport, and infrastructure.
Jolani declared himself president of Syria in December after his group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), toppled the government of Bashar al-Assad.
HTS was formerly known as the Nusra Front, which was founded after Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi sent Jolani with fighters and money to establish a new wing of the terror group in Syria in 2011.  
Jolani had entered Iraq in 2003 to join the nascent insurgency following the U.S. invasion, which had the goal of sparking a civil war between Iraq’s Sunni and Shia Muslim. Al-Qaeda in Iraq sent hundreds of car bombs to kill thousands of civilians in Shia areas, such as Najaf, Karbala, and Sadr City. The group later became known as Daesh in Iraq. 
Jolani was one of many Al-Qaeda and Daesh in Iraq leaders held in Bucca, the U.S. prison near the city of Basra in southern Iraq. Many were then released by U.S. forces in 2009 and 2010 to travel to Syria to launch a CIA-led insurgency to topple the government in 2011. 
The CIA operation to topple Assad, known as Timber Sycamore, was the largest and most expensive in the agency’s history, enjoying a budget of $1 billion per year, with assistance from Israeli, Turkish, Qatari, Saudi, French, and British intelligence. 
The Daesh in Iraq became the Daesh of Iraq and Syria in 2013 and returned to Iraq in 2014 to conquer large swathes of Anbar and Ninevah governorates, including the cities of Fallujah and Mosul. In August 2014, Daesh carried out a genocide against the religious minority.  
Thousands of Iraqi Shia from Karbala, Najaf, and Baghdad were martyred after joining the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) to fight against Daesh.