Iraq emerges as a potential target for Israel as it steps up efforts to eliminate the Iranian land bridge to the Levant, Ceng Sagnic, the coordinator of Kurdish Studies Program at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies in Tel Aviv said.
Israel may soon strike Iranian targets beyond Syria’s borders and launch aerial campaigns in Iraq where the airspace is defenseless and the political vacuum is too deep for the government to claim territorial sovereignty, Sagnic wrote in Israel-based Jerusalem Post.
Notwithstanding the continuous story of Israeli airstrikes on Iranian-affiliated targets across Syria, another interesting claim emerged in Iraqi media last week that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned the central Iraqi government of potential Israeli airstrikes against Shi’ite militia groups in that country.
Iraqi news outlets alleged that Pompeo made it clear to Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abd al-Mahdi that the US government would refrain from taking action should Israeli missiles start raining on Iranian targets inside Iraq.
Reports that the US was concerned about a possible Israeli aerial campaign against Shi’ite militias in Iraq emerged as the debate on the government’s control over militias continue.
The only known fact within the dramatically complicated political stalemate of Iraq is the notion that the Iraqi government has given up the race to control the militias, and the current picture is about not losing the government to Iranian militias entirely.
Israeli thinker Edy Cohen earlier confirmed the news about an imminent Israeli strike on Iranian militias in Iraq.
In several tweets, he mocked Iran's fascist threats issued by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, saying: "protect your troops in Syria at first and then threaten Tel Aviv!."
Two years ago, Israel launched more than 250 raids on Iranian sites in Syria and destroyed 80 Tehran facilities, Cohen said sarcastically.
He addressed the Shiite militias saying: "if I were you, I would join the Iraqi army because the [punishment] day is nearing."
Observers considered Cohen's remarks not only an affirmation of an expected Israeli strike on Iran's militia camps in Iraq, but also an indication that this strike could be launched very soon.
Threatening Israel
Mohammad Ali Jafari, the Iranian
IRGC's top commander, denied Iran's intentions to withdraw from Syria,
threatening to strike Israel with missiles.
“You should be afraid of the day that our precision-guided missiles roar and fall on your head,” Jafari was quoted as saying by the semi-official ISNA news agency on Wednesday, in a speech full of arrogance.
Jafari said that Iran will keep military forces in Syria. “Iran will keep all its military and revolutionary advisers and its weapons in Syria.”
Jafari called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s threats “a joke” and warned that the Israeli government “was playing with a lion’s tail.”
Israel threats
Seemingly, the leaders of the Shiite militias under IMIS
insist on bringing Iraq into chaos, not caring of the role Iraq plays in
preserving the security and stability of the Middle East.
Currently, IMIS is a threat not only to Sunnis in Iraq; it has also sent its militias to fight in Syria to protect the Syrian regime and implement the Iranian agenda, which Israel sees as a red flag.
After confirming that Israel bombed an Iranian weapons depot in Syria, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Sunday that the Jewish state will strike even harder if it proves necessary to prevent Iran from gaining a military foothold in Syria.
This means that Israel will probably hit the IMIS militias fighting in Syria as part of the Iranian army there.