Iran thwarted in attempt to manipulate new Iraqi government

Iraq’s Prime Minister-designate Adel Abdul Mahdi arrives at the Parliament building in the heavily guarded Green Zone, Baghdad. (AP)
Updated 26 October 2018
Follow

Iran thwarted in attempt to manipulate new Iraqi government

  • Cabinet meets after Suleimani fails to have Tehran-backed ministers appointed
  • Iran is seeking to tighten its control over the security issue in Iraq and the ministries of defense and interior are the cornerstones of this, says Al-Binna negotiator

BAGHDAD: An Iraqi Cabinet met outside the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad on Thursday for the first time in 15 years.

The meeting, chaired by new Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, followed an acrimonious session of the Iraqi Parliament that had lasted into the early hours of Thursday.

The session was supposed to be a rubber stamp for new government ministers agreed by the coalition of the two largest Shiite parliamentary blocs — Reform, sponsored by the influential cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr, and Al-Binna’a, the Iran-backed alliance led by Hadi Al-Amiri, commander of Badr Organization, the most powerful Shiite armed faction.

Instead, the session descended into bickering and arguments over the background and history of some of the ministerial candidates, and two in particular: Proposed Interior Minister Falih Al-Fayadh, a former national security adviser and a key ally of Amiri, and Defense Ministry candidate Fener Faisal, former commander of dictator Saddam Hussein’s private jet squadron.

Both men were nominated by Al-Binna’a, but the Iran-backed group was out-maneuvered by Sadr’s allies in the Reform alliance. After the prime minister and 14 of the 22 proposed ministers had been approved, Reform staged a walkout — leaving the Parliament without a quorum, and therefore unable to proceed.

“Amiri and his allies broke their deals with us,” a leading Reform negotiator told Arab News. “We told them clearly that the candidates for the security posts had to be independent, and exclusively nominated by Abdul Mahdi, but they insisted on putting partisan names forward at the last minute.

“They thought they could twist our arm and embarrass us so we would vote for their candidates without any consideration of their previous ties. But a deal is a deal. We said no to those eight candidates, and that means no.”

The attempt to manipulate the ministerial appointments was led by the Iranian military officer Gen. Qassim Suleimani, commander of the Quds Force, the overseas unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He met most of the Iranian Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish political allies in Iraq this week to promote his candidates, negotiators told Arab News.

“Iran is seeking to tighten its control over the security issue in Iraq and the ministries of Defense and Interior are the cornerstones of this,” an Al-Binna’a negotiator told Arab News. “Suleimani has been pressuring to back them. Sadr and his allies were smart enough to abort his attempts. They won this round.”   

After the disputes of the night before, there were simple and quiet decrees in Baghdad on Thursday morning to exchange authorities and offices between Mahdi, his predecessor Haidar Abadi and the members of their governments. The new prime minister was sworn in, followed by a meeting of the new Cabinet at Mahdi’s temporary office outside the Green Zone.

“We have presented an ambitious and detailed ministerial program with clear time limits and will work to implement it,” Mahdi said during a televised ceremony. 

“We have many challenges and have to work hard to develop the economy, activate the labor market, provide services and meet all the demands of our people.”


Israel minister says army will ‘ensure Iran cannot threaten’ country again

Updated 4 sec ago
Follow

Israel minister says army will ‘ensure Iran cannot threaten’ country again

  • Arch-foes fought a 12-day war last month
JERUSALEM: Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Friday said the army had a plan to prevent Iran from threatening Israel again after the arch-foes fought a 12-day war last month.
The Israeli military will prepare an “enforcement plan to ensure that Iran cannot threaten Israel again,” Katz said in a statement, adding that “the army must prepare on the intelligence and operational level to ensure that the Air Force maintains air superiority over Tehran.”

Trump expects Hamas decision in 24 hours on ‘final’ Gaza peace proposal

Updated 04 July 2025
Follow

Trump expects Hamas decision in 24 hours on ‘final’ Gaza peace proposal

  • Israel has earlier agreed on terms for a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Friday it would probably be known in 24 hours whether the Palestinian militant group Hamas has agreed to accept what he has called a “final proposal” for an Israel-Hamas ceasefire in Gaza.

The president also said he had spoken to Saudi Arabia about expanding the Abraham Accords, the deal on normalization of ties that his administration negotiated between Israel and some Gulf countries during his first term.

Trump said on Tuesday Israel had accepted the conditions needed to finalize a 60-day ceasefire with Hamas, during which the parties will work to end the war.

He was asked on Friday if Hamas had agreed to the latest ceasefire deal framework, and said: “We’ll see what happens, we are going to know over the next 24 hours.”

A source close to Hamas said on Thursday the Islamist group sought guarantees that the new US-backed ceasefire proposal would lead to the end of Israel’s war in Gaza.

Two Israeli officials said those details were still being worked out. Dozens of Palestinians were killed on Thursday in Israeli strikes, according to Gaza authorities.

The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered in October 2023 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, Israeli tallies show.

Gaza’s health ministry says Israel’s subsequent military assault has killed over 56,000 Palestinians. It has also caused a hunger crisis, internally displaced Gaza’s entire population and prompted accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice and of war crimes at the International Criminal Court. Israel denies the accusations.

A previous two month ceasefire ended when Israeli strikes killed more than 400 Palestinians on March 18. Trump earlier this year proposed a US takeover of Gaza, which was condemned globally by rights experts, the UN and Palestinians as a proposal of “ethnic cleansing.”

Abraham Accords

Trump made the comments on the Abraham Accords when asked about US media reporting late on Thursday that he had met Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman at the White House.

“It’s one of the things we talked about,” Trump said. “I think a lot of people are going to be joining the Abraham accords,” he added, citing the predicted expansion to the damage faced by Iran from recent US and Israeli strikes.

Axios reported that after the meeting with Trump, the Saudi official spoke on the phone with Abdolrahim Mousavi, chief of Iran’s General Staff of the Armed Forces.

Trump’s meeting with the Saudi official came ahead of a visit to Washington next week by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.


Darfur civilians ‘face mass atrocities and ethnic violence’

Updated 04 July 2025
Follow

Darfur civilians ‘face mass atrocities and ethnic violence’

  • Medical charity warns of new threat from escalation in fighting in Sudan civil war

KHARTOUM: Civilians in the Darfur region of Sudan face mass atrocities and ethnic violence in the civil war between the regular army and its paramilitary rivals, the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres warned on Thursday.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have sought to consolidate their power in Darfur since losing control of the capital Khartoum in March. Their predecessor, the Janjaweed militia, was accused of genocide in Darfur two decades ago.

The paramilitaries have intensified attacks on El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state which they have besieged since May 2024 in an effort to push the army out of its final stronghold in the region.
“People are not only caught in indiscriminate heavy fighting ... but also actively targeted by the Rapid Support Forces and their allies, notably on the basis of their ethnicity,” said Michel-Olivier Lacharite, Medecins Sans Frontieres’ head of emergencies. There were “threats of a full-blown assault,” on El-Fasher, which is home to hundreds of thousands of people largely cut off from food and water supplies and deprived of access to medical care, he said.


Egypt on alert as giant dam in Ethiopia completed

Updated 04 July 2025
Follow

Egypt on alert as giant dam in Ethiopia completed

ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopia moved on Thursday to reassure Egypt about its water supply after completing work on a controversial giant $4 billion dam on the Blue Nile.

“To our neighbors downstream, our message is clear: the dam is not a threat, but a shared opportunity,” Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said.

“The energy and development it will generate stand to uplift not just Ethiopia. We believe in shared progress, shared energy, and shared water. Prosperity for one should mean prosperity for all.”

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is 1.8 km wide and 145 meters high, and is Africa's largest hydroelectric project. It can hold 74 billion cubic meters of water and generate more than 5,000 megawatts of power — more than double Ethiopia’s current output. It will begin full operations in September.

Egypt already suffers from severe water scarcity and sees the dam as an existential threat because the country relies on the Nile for 97 percent of its water. President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Sudan’s leader Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan met last week and “stressed their rejection of any unilateral measures in the Blue Nile basin.” They were committed to safeguarding water security in the region, Sisi’s spokesman said.


Explosive drone intercepted near Irbil airport in northern Iraq, security statement says

Updated 03 July 2025
Follow

Explosive drone intercepted near Irbil airport in northern Iraq, security statement says

  • The “Flight operations at the airport continued normally,” the Irbil airport authority said

IRBIL, Iraq: An explosive drone was shot down near Irbil airport in northern Iraq on Thursday, the Iraqi Kurdistan’s counter-terrorism service said in a statement.

There were no casualties reported, according to two security sources.

The “Flight operations at the airport continued normally and the airport was not affected by any damage,” the Irbil airport authority said in a statement.

The incident only caused a temporary delay in the landing of one aircraft, the statement added.