Ihab al-Wazni, a civil activist, was assassinated in Karbala city, demonstrations and unrest in Iraq. Such incidents are not new to Iraqi society, as more than 20 activists, journalists and political analysts were assassinated in 2020 and it is still unknown who was behind the killings.
Iraq saw widespread demonstrations in November and December 2019 which was the largest demonstrations since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Demonstrators targeted state corruption, unemployment, bad conditions of infrastructure and public service. The protests were widely covered by regional and international media. But about 700 people were killed during 2019 unrest and over 27,000 others were injured. Moreover, over 3000 people were arrested.
Varying demands among demonstrators was exploited by foreign media and countries trying to sell their own demands in the guise of Iraqi people’s requests.
In a condition that people were psychologically prepared to blame everyone for the situation, some attempts were made to accuse Iran for the government failures in Iraq; accusations that resulted in attacking Iranian diplomatic mission for several times.
Deputy Governor General of Karbala disclosed in an interview a year after those incidents that a spy team was identified that was attempting to attack Iranian consulate in Karbala with RPG rockets and assassinate Iran’s consul general.
The sequence of incidents and assassination methods are clear indication that all of them have targeted friendly ties among Iran and Iraq.
In the meantime, a foreign official in Iraq gave a good clue as to where all these come from. The British Ambassador to Baghdad, Stephen Hickey, who accused Iran of intervention in Iraq's domestic affairs, intentionally implied in an interview a traditional “British Affair” to introduce the incidents as if Iran was involved again in tensions.
Referring to the early election that has been accepted by all fractions in the complex sphere of Iraqi polity, the British Ambassador said in the interview that ‘the conditions are not proper to hold an election’.
Faced by harsh responses from many Iraqi figures, the British diplomat, in the words of some Iraqi analysts, thinks that the country is still under British mandate.
Hickey’s attempts to link the incidents to the Islamic Republic of Iran were followed by another attempt targeting a Shiite journalist by shooting his head. He is still in critical condition in hospital.
Another point in recent days was that a large part of media coverage in different news channels was allocated to Iraq’s developments, while there was a minor coverage of what was going on in Palestine.
The Israeli regime was targeting Palestinian house in Gaza, attacking Palestinian worshipers in al-Aqsa mosque and killing many people in recent days, but it was only partly covered by the media which were exaggerating incidents in Iraq.
The sequence of incidents and attempts to label Iran as the one to blame in any tensions in Iraq and attacks on the Iranian diplomatic missions shows that there are some groups with links to foreign countries who try to weaken Iran’s strong ties with Iraq.
9416**2050
Follow us on Twitter @IrnaEnglish