Saudi Arabia and Qatar are supporting militant groups in Iraq and have effectively declared war on the country, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said as nationwide violence left 15 dead on Saturday.
The rare direct attack on the Sunni Gulf powers, with al-Maliki also accusing Riyadh of supporting global terrorism, comes with Iraq embroiled in its worst prolonged period of bloodshed since 2008, with more than 1,800 people killed already this year, ahead of parliamentary elections due next month.
The bloodletting in Iraq, which shares a long border with Saudi Arabia, has been driven principally by widespread discontent among the country’s Sunni Arab minority and by the civil war in neighboring Syria.
Photo: Reuters
Al-Maliki, a Shiite, has in the past blamed unnamed regional countries and neighbors for destabilizing Iraq.
However, in an interview with France 24 broadcast on Saturday, the Iraqi prime minister said allegations he was marginalizing Sunnis were being pushed by “sectarians with ties to foreign agendas, with Saudi and Qatari incitement.”
“They are attacking Iraq, through Syria and in a direct way, and they announced war on Iraq, as they announced it on Syria, and unfortunately it is on a sectarian and political basis,” he said. “These two countries are primarily responsible for the sectarian and terrorist and security crisis of Iraq.”
Saudi Arabia and Qatar have emerged as regional rivals because, while both have provided support to fighters opposed to embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the two countries have also sparred in recent weeks over Doha’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood of deposed Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi.
Saudi Arabia, along with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, withdrew its ambassador to Qatar this month.
Baghdad has long complained that support for militant groups fighting in Syria’s civil war finds its way through to Iraq, with weapons in particular ending up in the hands of jihadists.
Al-Maliki said in the interview that Riyadh and Doha were providing political, financial and media support to militant groups and accused them of “buying weapons for the benefit of these terrorist organizations.”
In the interview, al-Maliki also accused Saudi Arabia of supporting global terrorism, both inside the Arab world and in other countries.
He slammed “the dangerous Saudi stance” of supporting “terrorism in the world — it supports it in Syria and Iraq and Lebanon and Egypt and Libya and even in countries outside” the Arab world.
Al-Maliki in January blamed “diabolical” and “treacherous” Arab countries, but has consistently refused to point directly at particular states.
However, as violence has worsened markedly in Iraq — the death toll from attacks and clashes last month was more than triple that of February last year — and with elections due on April 30, al-Maliki has taken a hard line, pushing security operations against militants.
He has also called for greater coordination against militancy, with Baghdad due to host an international counter-terrorism conference on Wednesday.
On Saturday, violence nationwide killed at least 15 people, including a parliamentary election candidate — the second murdered this year — and four children, security and medical sources said.
A suicide bomber yesterday detonated a minibus rigged with explosives at a crowded checkpoint south of Baghdad, killing 34 people, security and medical officials said. Among the fatalities from the bombing at the northern entrance to the city of Hilla were five policemen, two women and five children, according to a police captain and medical sources.
A further 167 people were wounded, the sources said
The suicide bomber detonated an explosives-rigged minibus during morning rush hour at a checkpoint at the northern entrance to Hilla, the mostly Shiite capital of Babil Province south of Baghdad.
“I saw a huge fire that covered the entire checkpoint and many cars nearby,” Salam Ali, who suffered wounds to his chest and one of his hands, said from his bed in a Hilla hospital.
“Many victims could not get out of their cars because the pressure of the explosion fused the doors shut,” he said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of