Iraqi Hezbollah`s terror threats border with Saudi Arabia
Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi seeks to convince the militia of Hezbollah Brigades in Iraq to withdraw from the Nukhayb border with Saudi Arabia and leave the security file in the Iraqi-Saudi border exclusively for the army forces, but Hezbollah is still procrastinating and refuses to withdraw, despite being informed of this matter more than ten days, sources said.
Hezbollah Brigades, which have six locations inside Nukhayb adjacent to Saudi territory, which have been in place since 2016, still refuse to implement the Prime Minister's decision to evacuate the international border areas of Iraq with Saudi Arabia and hand them over to the army and border guards exclusively, particularly after U.S. reports about Saudi oil sites starting from Iraq.
The militias have more than one leader and everyone demands a deadline to review the military situation, while another indicates that the Brigades do not consider themselves part of the popular crowd, and they are within the axis of Islamic resistance, a clear reference to its rejection of Abdul Mahdi`s decisions.
In earlier times, officials and parliament members from Anbar governorate accused Hezbollah of abducting some 3,000 displaced people who fled the cities of the governorate because of the war against the ISIS terrorist group. They confirmed that those displaced people were being detained at immense jails in Jurf Al Sakhar area north of Babel province, controlled by the Iraqi Hezbollah for years.
A member of the Iraqi Veterans Association, Col. Emad al-Ezzi, said that there were many reasons behind Hezbollah's insistence on staying in Nukhayb, pointing out that the militia viewed Nukhayb as a point of concentration near the border with Saudi Arabia, which is engaged in a fierce war with Hezbollah allies in Yemen (Houthis), as well as the fact that Nukhayb represents the key to the southern Iraqi province of Anbar, which extends to the border with Jordan and Syria.
He considered that the strongest in the Iraqi "Hezbollah" is its insistence on staying in sites scheduled to be delivered to the Iraqi army, indicating that Iraqi factions were quick to welcome Abdul Mahdi's recent decision on restructuring the "popular crowd."
Iraqi Army Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Osman Al-Ghanmi visited Riyadh a few days ago at the official invitation of his Saudi counterpart Fayyad bin Hamed Al-Ruwaili.
Iraqi sources in Baghdad, one of them a member of Iraqi Parliament's Defense and Security Committee, said that the visit came after Saudi-Iraqi military contacts, which included an invitation to the Ghanmi to visit Saudi Arabia and discuss the border file and ways to secure it.
Ghanmi`s visit to Saudi Arabia came less than a week after the US reports that two attacks on Saudi oil interests last June were not from Yemeni territory, but from inside Iraqi territory by armed factions` aircraft linked to Iran, according to American officials.
Iraq officially represented in Abdul Mahdi denied those reports, and considered that the information spread by US officials, assuring them in turn that the intelligence agencies confirmed the lack of authenticity.
The town of Nukhayb, south of Anbar province, is in the Saudi town of Arar; a part of it leads to the Jordanian border with Iraq towards the town of Rutba. It is located 215 kilometers from Ramadi, capital of Anbar province.
The town has a population of about 30,000, mostly from the Shammar, Anza, and Dulaim tribes, and has tribal ties with their Saudi counterparts.
The terrorist ISIS has not occupied Al-Nukhayb, like the rest of Anbar, because it did not form any logistical or military importance to it, as well as its presence in an open area, which makes it easier to destroy its elements by air if they try to advance.
However, several militias entered the town, the first of which was the Imam Ali Brigades, then Qassem al-Jabarin and Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, near Iran, before withdrawing all of them, leaving the town since 2016 in the hands of Hezbollah Brigades.