2019/01/25 | 01:30 - Source: Baghdad Post
(ThisDay | Iraq News Now)- 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 IsraelMohammad 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 threatsSeemingly, 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.
