BAGHDAD: Iran’s influence is looming large as Iraqis prepare to head to the polls for parliamentary elections in May, with many in the country worried that Tehran may be looking to strengthen its political grip on Baghdad through the ballot box.
Iranian support and military advisers helped Baghdad’s Shiite-led government beat back the Daesh group. But with militants now largely defeated militarily, Iran’s expanding influence has emerged as one of Iraq’s most divisive issues ahead of the balloting.
That influence has sown fear among Iraq’s disenchanted minority Sunnis, who bore the brunt of the war’s destruction, and has also caused concern in Washington. Despite tensions between the United States and Iran, both remain key allies of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi’s government.
US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis last month accused Iran of “mucking around” in Iraq’s upcoming elections, telling reporters the US has what he called “worrisome evidence” that Iran is funneling “not an insignificant amount of money” into Iraq to try to sway votes. Baghdad rejected the accusation.
Government spokesman Saad Al-Hadithi stressed that the use of foreign money in domestic politics “is illegal and unconstitutional.”
“The government is taking great efforts to hold free and fair elections and prevent the manipulation of election results,” he said.
Both Iran and Iraq are Shiite-majority counties and share deep economic and cultural ties — as well as a 1,500-kilometer (900-mile) border.
The two countries fought a devastating war in the 1980s that left hundreds of thousands dead. But Iranian influence in Iraq has steadily grown since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, marking the start of a prolonged period of sectarian division, extremist violence and political strife.
Under Saddam, many of Iraq’s Shiite political elite spent years in exile in Iran. Since Saddam’s ouster, Iraqi markets have been stocked with Iranian goods and millions of Iranian pilgrims descend on Iraq each year to visit holy shrines in the cities of Samarra, Baghdad, Najaf and Karbala.
When entire divisions of Iraq’s military disintegrated following the fall of the city of Mosul to IS in the summer of 2014, Iranian influence soared.
Weeks before the US began a bombing campaign against Daesh, Iranian advisers and support for Iraqi Shiite militias, which became known as Popular Mobilization Units, helped halt Daesh’s advance, which came dangerously close to Baghdad. From then on, the militias became instrumental in the battle against Daesh.
More than 500 members of the paramilitary forces or political figures associated with the militias are now running for parliament.
Ahmed Al-Asadi is one of the candidates with strong paramilitary ties. An elected member of parliament from Baghdad and former spokesman for the PMU, Al-Asadi cut his ties with the force before launching his re-election bid — a formality required by a governing body overseeing the May vote.
“Iran is the ally of the powerful forces that supported Iraq against terrorism,” he said, dismissing concerns that Tehran plays a destabilizing role in Iraq.
But other Iraqi politicians worry that if a large number of men like Al-Asadi win seats in parliament, Iraq will be even more beholden to its eastern neighbor.
Saleh Al-Mutlaq, a longtime Iraqi politician and former deputy prime minister, said he expects candidates with ties to the Shiite militias to do well in upcoming elections.
“These elections will be disastrous for this country,” he said. “The PMU will be a key player in the political process and this will give Iran a role and a word in forming the government and in choosing a prime minister.”
Iran is not the only one trying to influence the May vote, said Joost Hiltermann, a longtime Iraq researcher with the International Crisis Group.
“Everybody is trying to buy or gain influence, anybody who has a stake in Iraq that is, whether they do it with money or intimidation or other kinds of incentives,” he said. “Ever since there have been elections in 2005, there’s been meddling.”
The future of American forces in Iraq hinges in large part on who becomes Iraq’s next prime minister and who gets to lead the country’s most powerful ministries.
While the Shiite militias racked up several early victories against Daesh, it was US-led coalition airstrikes that allowed Iraqi forces to retake urban areas. Iraq remains deeply dependent on US military aid, training and intelligence sharing.
While Al-Abadi, who is seeking re-election with his recently formed Victory Alliance party, has said he is open to long-term American training programs for Iraqi forces, some of his opponents have taken a much harder line, describing any US forces in Iraq as occupiers.
The US still has more than 5,000 troops in Iraq, supporting its fight against remaining pockets of Daesh, most significantly along Iraq’s volatile border with Syria, in western Anbar province and around the city of Kirkuk — areas that have seen an uptick in militant activity.
“I’m not going to speculate on anything that could or would happen,” coalition spokesman Col. Ryan Dillon said when asked if there is concern that a change in government could affect the US-led coalition’s presence in Iraq.
“We are here at the invitation of the government of Iraq to support their operation to defeat Daesh, and we’ll continue to do so as long as we are invited,” he said, referring to Daesh by an Arabic acronym.
Iraq grapples with Iranian influence ahead of May elections
Iraq grapples with Iranian influence ahead of May elections
- More than 500 members of the paramilitary forces or political figures associated with the Iran-backed PMU are now running for parliament
- Many Iraqis worried that Tehran may be looking to strengthen its political grip on Baghdad through elections
Israel pummels south Beirut as Hezbollah targets Haifa area
- Israel’s military reported “heavy rocket barrage” on Haifa, saying synagogue was hit
- Lebanese authorities say over 3,452 people have been killed since October last year
BEIRUT: Israel launched a wave of air strikes on Hezbollah bastions in Beirut and south Lebanon on Saturday, as the Iran-backed militants said they fired on several Israeli military bases around the coastal city of Haifa.
Israel’s military reported a “heavy rocket barrage” on Haifa and said a synagogue was hit, injuring two civilians.
Since September 23, Israel has escalated its bombing of targets in Lebanon, later sending in ground troops after almost a year of limited, cross-border exchanges of fire begun by Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in support of Hamas in Gaza.
In the Palestinian territory, where Hamas’s attack on Israel triggered the war, the civil defense agency reported 24 people killed in strikes on Saturday.
Security services in Israel said two flares landed near Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in the town of Caesarea, south of Haifa, but he was not home.
The incident comes about a month after a drone targeted the same residence, which Hezbollah claimed.
Israel’s military chief, in comments issued Saturday, said Hezbollah has already “paid a big price” but Israel will keep fighting until tens of thousands of its residents displaced from the north can return safely.
“We will continue to fight, to implement plans, to go further, conduct deep strikes, and hit Hezbollah very hard,” Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said on a visit earlier in the week to the Kfar Kila area of south Lebanon.
AFPTV footage showed fresh strikes Saturday on the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, after Israel’s military called on residents to evacuate.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported a series of strikes.
The Israeli military said aircraft had targeted “a weapons storage facility” and a Hezbollah “command center.”
The NNA also reported strikes on the southern city of Tyre, including in a neighborhood near UNESCO-listed ancient ruins. Israel’s military late Saturday said it had hit Hezbollah facilities in the Tyre area.
In Lebanon’s east, the health ministry said an Israeli strike in the Bekaa Valley killed six people including three children.
Hezbollah said it fired a guided missile which set an Israeli tank ablaze in the southwest Lebanon village of Shamaa, about five kilometers (three miles) from the border.
Late Saturday, after Israel reported the rocket barrage on Haifa, Hezbollah said it had targeted five military bases, including the Stella Maris naval base which it said it fired on earlier in the day.
In eastern Lebanon, funerals were held for 14 civil defense staff killed in an Israeli strike on Thursday.
“They weren’t involved with any (armed) party... they were just waiting to answer calls for help,” said Ali Al-Zein, a relative of one of the dead.
Lebanese authorities say more than 3,452 people have been killed since October last year, with most casualties recorded since September.
Israel announced the death of a soldier in southern Lebanon, bringing to 48 the number killed in fighting with Hezbollah.
In Hamas-run Gaza, the Israeli military said it continued operations in the northern areas of Jabalia and Beit Lahia, the targets of an intense offensive since early October.
Israel said its renewed operations aimed to stop Hamas from regrouping.
A UN-backed assessment on November 9 warned famine was imminent in northern Gaza, amid the increased hostilities and a near-halt in food aid.
Israel has pushed back against a 172-page Human Rights Watch report this week that said its displacement of Gazans amounts to a “crime against humanity,” as well as findings from a UN Special Committee that pointed to warfare practices that “are consistent with the characteristics of genocide.”
A foreign ministry spokesman dismissed the HRW report as “completely false,” while the United States — Israel’s main military supplier — said accusations of genocide “are certainly unfounded.”
The Gaza health ministry on Saturday said the overall death toll in more than 13 months of war has reached 43,799.
The majority of the dead are civilians, according to ministry figures which the United Nations considers reliable.
In Rafah, southern Gaza, Jamil Al-Masry told AFP a house was hit, causing “a massive explosion.”
“We went to the house, only to find it in ruins, with fire raging and smoke and dust everywhere.”
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Demonstrators in Tel Aviv on Saturday reiterated demands that the government reach a deal to free dozens of hostages still held in Gaza.
The protest came a week after mediator Qatar suspended its role until Hamas and Israel show “seriousness” in truce and hostage-release talks.
In a rare claim of responsibility for a strike on Syria, Israel said it targeted the Islamic Jihad group on Thursday.
A statement from the group on Saturday confirmed that “prominent leader” Abdel Aziz Minawi and external relations chief Rasmi Yusuf Abu Issa were killed in the air raid on Qudsaya, in the Damascus area.
Islamic Jihad still holds several Israeli hostages taken during the October 7 attack.
Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad are all backed by Israel’s arch-enemy Iran, which said Friday it supported a swift end to the nearly two-month war in Lebanon.
With diplomacy aimed at ending the Gaza war stalled, a top government official in Beirut said on Friday that US ambassador Lisa Johnson had presented a 13-point proposal to halt the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.
It includes a 60-day truce, during which Lebanon will deploy troops to the border. The official added that Israel has yet to respond to the plan.
UK doubles aid to war-torn Sudan
- Fighting broke out in April 2023 between the army under the country’s de facto ruler Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo
LONDON: The UK on Sunday announced a £113 million ($143 million) aid boost to support more than one million people affected by the war in Sudan, doubling its current package.
The new funding will be targeted at the 600,000 people in Sudan and 700,000 people in neighboring countries who have fled the conflict.
“The brutal conflict in Sudan has caused unimaginable suffering. The people of Sudan need more aid, which is why the UK is helping to provide much-needed food, shelter and education for the most vulnerable,” Foreign Secretary David Lammy said in a government press release.
“The UK will never forget Sudan,” he vowed.
Fighting broke out in April 2023 between the army under the country’s de facto ruler Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
Last month, United Nations experts accused the warring sides of using “starvation tactics” against 25 million civilians, and three major aid organizations warned of a “historic” hunger crisis as families resort to eating leaves and insects.
Lammy is due to visit the UN Security Council on Monday, where his ministry said he will call on the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) to keep the vital Adre border crossing open indefinitely to allow aid deliveries.
“We cannot deliver aid without access. Starvation must not be used as a weapon of war,” he said.
The new funding package will support UN and NGO partners in providing food, money, shelter, medical assistance, water and sanitation, said the Foreign Office.
Deaths in the conflict are likely to be “substantially underreported,” according to a study published this week, which found more casualties in Khartoum State alone than current empirical estimates for the whole country.
Sudan women sexually exploited in Chad camps
- Some victims said among those who exploited them were humanitarian workers and local security forces
- Nidhi Kapur, who works on preventing sexual exploitation and abuse, said exploitation represents a deep failure by the aid community
- Many of the women interviewed were unaware of the free hotline and feedback boxes put up by UN agencies to report abuse anonymously
ADRE, Chad: Crossing into Chad, the 27-year-old thought she’d left the horrors of Sudan’s war behind: the bodies she ran over while fleeing, the screams of girls being raped, the disappearance of her husband when gunmen attacked. But now she says she has faced more suffering — being forced as a refugee to have sex to get by.
She cradled her 7-week-old son, who she asserted was the child of an aid worker who promised her money in exchange for sex.
“The children were crying. We ran out of food,” she said of her four other children. “He abused my situation.” She and other women who spoke to The Associated Press requested anonymity because they feared retribution.
Some Sudanese women and girls assert that men, including those meant to protect them such as humanitarian workers and local security forces, have sexually exploited them in Chad’s displacement sites, offering money, easier access to assistance and jobs. Such sexual exploitation in Chad is a crime.
Hundreds of thousands of people, most of them women, have streamed into Chad to escape Sudan’s civil war, which has killed over 20,000 people. Aid groups struggle to support them in growing displacement sites.
Three women spoke with the AP in the town of Adre near the Sudanese border. A Sudanese psychologist shared the accounts of seven other women and girls who either refused to speak directly with a reporter or were no longer in touch with her. The AP could not confirm their accounts.
Daral-Salam Omar, the psychologist, said all the seven told her they went along with the offers of benefits in exchange for sex out of necessity. Some sought her help because they became pregnant and couldn’t seek an abortion at a clinic for fear of being shunned by their community, she said.
“They were psychologically destroyed. Imagine a woman getting pregnant without a husband amid this situation,” Omar said.
Sexual exploitation during large humanitarian crises is not uncommon, especially in displacement sites. Aid groups have long struggled to combat the issue. They cite a lack of reporting by women, not enough funds to respond and a focus on first providing basic necessities.
The UN refugee agency said it doesn’t publish data on cases, citing the confidentiality and safety of victims.
People seeking protection should never have to make choices driven by survival, experts said. Nidhi Kapur, who works on preventing sexual exploitation and abuse in emergency contexts, said exploitation represents a deep failure by the aid community.
Yewande Odia, the United Nations Population’s Fund representative in Chad, said sexual exploitation is a serious violation. UN agencies said displacement camps have “safe spaces” where women can gather, along with awareness sessions, a free hotline and feedback boxes to report abuse anonymously.
Yet many of the Sudanese women said they weren’t aware of the hotline, and some said using the boxes would draw unwanted attention.
The Sudanese woman with the newborn said she was afraid to report the aid worker for fear he’d turn her in to police.
She said she approached the aid worker, a Sudanese man, after searching for jobs to buy basic necessities like soap. She asked him for money. He said he’d give her cash but only in exchange for sex.
They slept together for months, she said, and he paid the equivalent of about $12 each time. After she had the baby, he gave her a one-time payment of approximately $65 but denied it was his, she said.
The man was a Sudanese laborer for Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, she said.
Two other Sudanese women said Chadian men working at MSF sites— one wearing MSF clothing — solicited them after they applied for work with the organization. The men took their phone numbers and repeatedly called, saying they’d give them jobs for sex. Both women said they refused.
Christopher Lockyear, MSF’s secretary general, said the organization was not aware of the allegations and wanted to investigate. “Asking for money or sex in exchange for access to care or a job is a clear violation of our behavioral commitments,” he said.
MSF would not say how many such cases had been reported among Sudanese refugees in Chad. Last year, out of 714 complaints made about MSF staff behavior where it works globally, 264 were confirmed to be cases of abuse or inappropriate behavior including sexual exploitation, abuse of power and bullying, Lockyear said.
Lockyear said MSF is creating a pool of investigators at the global level to enhance its ability to pursue allegations.
One woman told the AP that a man with another aid group also exploited her, but she was unable to identify the organization. Omar, the psychologist, said several of the women told her they were exploited by aid workers, local and international. She gave no evidence to back up the claims.
Another woman, one of the two who alleged they were approached after seeking work with MSF, said she also refused a local policeman who approached her and promised an extra food ration card if she went to his house.
Ali Mahamat Sebey, the head official for Adre, said police are not allowed inside the camps and asserted that allegations against them of exploitation were false. With the growing influx of people, however, it’s hard to protect everyone, he said.
The women said they just want to feel safe, adding that access to jobs would lessen their vulnerability.
After most of her family was killed or abducted in Sudan’s Darfur region last year, one 19-year-old sought refuge in Chad. She didn’t have enough money to support the nieces and nephews in her care. She got a job at a restaurant in the camp but when she asked her Sudanese boss for a raise, he agreed on the condition of sex.
The money he paid was more than six times her salary. But when she got pregnant with his child, the man fled, she asserted. She rubbed her growing belly.
“If we had enough, we wouldn’t have to go out and lose our dignity,” she said.
The family of Israeli-American hostage pleads with Biden and Trump to bring hostages home
- “I think maybe there is new hope,” says Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander, 20
TEL AVIV, Israel: Over the past two weeks, the political landscape around the negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza have undergone a dramatic transformation.
The American elections, the firing of Israel’s popular defense minister, Qatar’s decision to suspend its mediation, and the ongoing war in Lebanon all seem to have pushed the possibility for a ceasefire in Gaza further away than it has been in more than a year of conflict.
Still, some families of the dozens of hostages who remain captive in Gaza are desperately hoping the changes will reignite momentum to bring their loved ones home — though the impact of Donald Trump returning to the White House and a hard-line new defense minister in Israel remains unknown.
“I think maybe there is new hope,” said Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander, 20, a soldier kidnapped from his base on the Gaza border during the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
Alexander’s parents, Adi and Yael Alexander, who live in New Jersey, met this week with Trump and President Joe Biden in Washington and pleaded with them to work together to bring all the hostages home in a single deal.
“As a grandmother, I say, cooperate — Trump wants peace in this region, Biden has always said he wants to release the hostages, so work together and do something important for the lives of human beings,” Ben Baruch said.
She said neither leader offered specific details or plans for releasing the hostages or restarting negotiations for a Gaza ceasefire.
Talks have hit a wall in recent months, largely over Hamas’ demands for guarantees that a full hostage release will bring an end to Israel’s campaign in Gaza and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vows to continue fighting until Hamas is crushed and unable to rearm.
“We’re not involved in politics, not American and not Israeli, the families are above politics, we just want our loved ones home,” she said. “Edan was kidnapped because he was Jewish, not because he voted for a certain party.”
More than 250 people were kidnapped and 1,200 killed when Hamas militants burst across the border and carried out a bloody attack on southern Israeli communities. Israel’s campaign of retaliation since has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and some 90 percent of its 2.3 million people have been displaced.
As militants attacked on the morning of Oct. 7, Edan Alexander, then 19, was able to send a quick message to his mother amid the intense fighting around his base. He told her that despite having shrapnel embedded in his helmet from the explosions, he had managed to get to a protected area. After 7 a.m., his family lost contact.
Alexander was considered missing as the family desperately searched hospitals for him. After five days, friends recognized him in a video of Hamas militants capturing soldiers.
The family was happy: He was alive, Ben Baruch said. “But we didn’t understand what we were entering into, what is still happening now.”
When a week-long ceasefire last November brought the release of 105 hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners, some of the freed hostages said they had seen Alexander in captivity. Ben Baruch said they told her Alexander kept his cool, encouraging them that everyone would be released soon.
Ben Baruch said she was disheartened when Netanyahu last week fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who she said had consistently reassured the families that the hostages were at the top of his agenda.
“I felt he was a partner,” she said. Gallant was replaced by a Netanyahu loyalist who has urged a tough line against Hamas.
A mass protest movement urging the government to reach a hostage deal has shown signs of weariness, and hostage families have struggled to keep their campaign in the headlines. A delegation of former hostages and their relatives met with the pope on Thursday and expressed hope the incoming and outgoing American administrations would bring their loved ones home.
In Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square, the headquarters of the protest movement, opinions were mixed on the effect of Trump’s election on hostages.
“I don’t think this is good for Israel or the hostages, I’m really scared of him,” said David Danino, a 45-year-old hi-tech worker from Tel Aviv. He was at Hostages Square with his family, visiting from France, who wanted to pay their respects.
Danino noted that Israel had already achieved many of its war goals, including killing Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. “They are building us a photo of what is ‘victory,’ but how is there victory without the hostages?” he asked.
Others thought Trump’s reputation might help the situation.
“When he decides to do something, he does it, without blinking, and he can create ultimatums,” said Orly Vitman, a 54-year-old former special education teacher from the Tel Aviv suburb of Holon.
She comes every few months to the square with her daughter to light candles in honor of the hostages. While she was opposed to the firing of Gallant in the middle of the war, she was heartened by Trump’s election.
“We will have the legitimacy and ability to use the full force of what we know how to do,” she said.
Ben Baruch, a philanthropist and accomplished artist whose modernizt sculptures dot the Tel Aviv home where she has lived for 52 years, said she has pushed everything aside in her life to focus on the struggle to bring her grandson home. Her days are filled with meetings, interviews, rallies, protests and communal prayer sessions uniting different groups of Israelis from across the religious spectrum.
“It’s like people’s lives went back to their routine, but ours did not,” she said. “There’s nothing left to say. All the words have been said. We have heard everything. We have met with everyone. But they are still there.”
Two flares land near Netanyahu’s home in ‘serious incident’: police
- Israel's President Isaac Herzog condemned the incident in a post on X and said an investigation was underway
- Caesarea is about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of the Haifa city area, which Hezbollah has regularly targeted
JERUSALEM: Two flares landed near Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence on Saturday in the central town of Caesarea, security services said, describing the incident as “serious.”
“Two flares landed in the courtyard outside the prime minister’s residence,” police and the Shin Bet internal security agency said in a joint statement.
“The prime minister and his family were not in the house at the time of the incident,” they added.
“An investigation has been opened. This is a serious incident and a dangerous escalation.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog condemned the incident and warned “against an increase in violence in the public sphere.
“I have now spoken with the head of the Shin Bet and expressed the urgent need to investigate and deal with those responsible for the incident as soon as possible,” Herzog said in a post on X.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the flares.
The incident comes after a drone attack targeting the same residence on October 19, which was later claimed by Hezbollah.
Netanyahu at the time accused Hezbollah of attempting to assassinate him and his wife.
Since September 23, Israel has escalated its bombing of Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, later sending in ground troops after almost a year of limited, cross-border exchanges of fire begun by Hezbollah militants over the war in Gaza.
Caesarea is about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of the Haifa city area, which Hezbollah has regularly targeted.
Two people were injured when a synagogue was hit in Haifa by a “heavy rocket barrage” from Hezbollah earlier Saturday, the Israeli military said.
Separately, the army said it had intercepted some of the “approximately 10 projectiles” that crossed from Lebanon into Israel.
Hezbollah claimed several rocket attacks on northern Israel, saying it targeted military sites including a naval base in the Haifa area.
