Update: This report turned out to be untrue. Neither Hadi Amiri nor Qais al-Khazali were captured by US forces on Thursday night. Amiri was seen on Friday calling for the expulsion of US forces, and Khazali was (also falsely) reported killed in a Friday US airstrike. Khazali’s whereabouts are unknown but there is no indication he is in custody. Amiri was in parliament on Sunday voting in favor of the expulsion of US troops.
Following the United States attack on the Baghdad International Airport on Thursday evening, a strike which killed seven people, including Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and two top Iraqi members of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), it is now being reported that US Marines carried out arrest raids inside Baghdad, capturing high ranking Iraqi MP Hadi al-Amiri and militia leader Qais al-Khazali.
Details are still emerging, but the Marines were reported by several Middle East sources to have conducted raids in the Jadriah district of Baghdad, and came out of it with Amiri and Khazali.
This comes a day after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared Amiri to be “an Iranian asset,” citing his presence at the protests at the US Embassy in Baghdad. Amiri is the leader of Iraq’s second largest parliamentary bloc, as well as the head of the powerful Badr Brigade. In recent years he had been under consideration as a potential premier.
Khazali is the head of Qa’saib Ahl al-Haq, a substantial militia within the PMU in its own right. Though Khazali has politically been aligned to Amiri in recent years, in the past he was an aide to top cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, head of the main Iraqi parliament bloc.
WTF? Whats a patriotic Iraqi to do?
We’re in for it now… Happy new year – might be our last.
Iraq will burn for trying to play neutral.
That is exactly so. It hesitated after ISIS was defeated, and did not address the status of US forces. In a most bizarre turn of events — the very units that played key role in ousting ISIS as well as PKK branch in Iraq, where curtesy if US they were ensconced in Sinjar and Kirkuk — are declared US enemies.
This is an effort to destabilize Iraq. Neutrality is possible ONLY when declared by a sovereign country, Iraq is not free, thus it is expected to be obedient to US orders.
By what authority are US marines arresting anyone, that should be the Iraqi authorities
By the right of might. I expect trouble come tomorrow. What is an Iraqi patriot to do? On the bright side, we may have succeeded in uniting Sunni and Shia in Iraq.
Well I guess you have not been paying attention to what has been going on in Iraq, these militias are rounding hundreds of people up and killing them and putting them in Mass Graves these guys are in charge of those malicious the Iraq he’s if you will go to Reddit and read their comments they are dancing in the street catch up on what’s going on over in Iraq before you make comments.
Is Reddit where we get the latest “real” news?
Ironic, since this feckless Iraqi government was installed by the US in the first place. Karma’s a bitch
They are an occupation force and give themselves authority to do whatever they want. I mean they just killed the leading Iranian general, a revered and almost mythical figure there. Arresting a few people is small fry compared to that.
It’s not right, and I certainly don’t condone any of it, but it’s not exactly surprising behavior for an occupying military. Iran will of course respond, the US will retaliate and the march towards war continues.
The US mil set this chain of events in motion by killing at least 2 dozen Iraqi PMU guys in revenge for an alleged missile attack that supposedly killed one American “contractor”…even though the PMU bases they targeted were hundreds of miles away and could not have been involved. When angry Iraqis responded by shouting, burning tires and throwing stuff into the American embassy compound in Baghdad (a big city in Iraq) they assassinated a high-rankingIranian official.
It’s almost as if the current escalation, and trying to provoke Iran into a war, was the intention all along. The media is doing its duty, as per usual, by using phrases like “Iranian backed” as often as possible and making sure the headline scanning public comes away with the idea that the bad guy in all this is Iran.
The spook agencies and their government lackeys don’t even bother producing fake evidence anymore…they expect their evidence-free assertions to be taken as unassailable facts and, sadly, they often are. The mea culpas after the 2003 WMD hoax was exposed were just theatre for public consumption at the time.
The media is now effectively the official propaganda arm of the state and the public is too busy pissing its time and brain cells way on “social” media to give a shit. In a way it would be better if they loudly supported the lies because that would mean they at least are still engaged and open, however narrowly, to the possibility that they are wrong. But it is very difficult to turn apathy and indifference into giving a shit. Even the most hardcore never Trumpers have no issue with his war mongering and shovelling trillions of dollars into “defense” industry coffers.
Looks like the surreal weirdness of the last few years is going to get even stranger in 2020.
/rant
Yes! All completely true!
And the reason is because it is the very end of another great 25,920-year Earth Age, according to the precession of the equinoxes, and according to the four mini Earth ages of Hindu mythology: The Satra Yuga, followed by the Tetra Yuga, then the Dwapara Yuga, and finally–the Kali Yuga.
The Kali Yuga and the Age of Pisces both ended on December 21, 2012. The Age of Aquarius and the Satra Yuga officially returned at that point.
God and God’s angels and even the Earth itself are all working to bring the old world to an end, and birth the new world!
In total agreement with everything you just said.
And that’s exactly what proves that Iraq is a US colony, another failed attempt at “nation-building.” Alas, if we had asked Iraq to arrest their own political figures for vocalizing their opposition to US military actions in their country, Iraq’s officials may have been less than agreeable.
The Pentagon IS the only authority in Iraq. Whaddayagonnadoabouddit?
There is but one authority in Iraq, it is the US that leads a multinational group who profit heavily from Iraq’s resources.
The world’s most expensive and lavish US Embassy is located in the Green Zone Iraq and cost over 15 millions USD per month to maintain facilities, and its staffing is paid a 50% premium over pay grade.
The Iraq government is but a facade and is so thouroghly corrupt, by US design, that it has more people working on US payrolls that no move by Iraq government or its military is unknown to US.
The recent assassination of Irans military contingent and a prominent member of an ex malitia commander, the malitia had recently become two division addition to Iraq military and arrest of Prominent political andbreligios Iraqi figures showed just how deep US intelligence is with all things Iraq.
There are no Iraq groups that dare challenge US control, suicide is not an Iraqi trait and they saw their most powerfull resistance the Sadhr Brigades decimated in past.
Is US/ Israel pushing for a direct proxie war against Iran in Syria and Iraq, damn right they are and it was launched over a year ago by Israel.
Iraq could of never defeated ISIS and other US/Israel AND their allies terrorist without Iran’s help.
Almost all US military aid, what Iraq could not afford due to governments theft of oil revenues, went to the Kurdistan portion of Iraq.
One thing US is concerned about is not attacks from Iranian or Iraq Malitias but the placement of those units along Syrian border and its strategic highway that has provided direct links and supplies + cash between Iraq and Syrian Kurd strongholds.
Will Iran retaliate, doubtful, they haven’t done so in recent past as US and Israel bomb them whenever they want.
“Sovereign” Iraq is allowed to have allies, and the main one is Iran (thanks mainly to Dubya Bush and his mission accomplished). Yanks go home.
What’s the source for this, other than the tweet? This article is one of the only relevant results when googling Amiri getting captured.
Saddam Hussein’s words upon his capture still resonate with the clusteref we’ve created. “Why America, Why?”
the US is a total rogue nation….. and will soon be swept out of Iraq and Syria out of the entire middle east
People have been saying that since the 1950s. But The US and Israel have always been to powerful, militarily, for anyone to stop.
Are there confirmations of this? Is there an Al Arabiya link?
They report he was captured as if he was avoiding authorities which is nonsense. People participating in protests are not criminals the folks ordering the bombings are.