A wave of bombings and new security incidents cause a widespread damage in Iraq, which a group of analysts and researchers believe is linked to several recent political and security events in the country, especially with their high level of bloodshed and the number of deaths.
It is noteworthy that Sadr City witnessed on Monday an explosion caused by improvised explosive devices, targeting a popular market, killing 30 civilians and wounding dozens, according to the security services.
ISIS in the forefront, but a perpetrator behind the scenes
With ISIS’s adoption of the Sadr City attacks, the debate over the main perpetrator behind the bombings is intensifying, particularly in light of the great contradiction between the terrorist organization’s adoption and the security media cell’s statement that the bombing was caused by an explosive device.
It is noteworthy that the organization has said, in a statement that the attack was a suicide attack carried out by one of the organization’s members called Abu Hamza, who blew himself up in a gathering in Sadr City. While Iraqi security versions have indicated that, an explosive device exploded in the popular Al-Waheilat market.
“The contradiction between what has been mentioned by ISIS and the Iraqi security raises many questions about the credibility of the terrorist organization’s statement, especially since it had previously adopted many operations which turned out later that the organization had nothing to do with them,” Salah Al-Pachachi, a researcher in Middle East affairs, says. He also points out that the organization’s adoption comes to escalate security tension and to dismiss issues related to militias, especially the assassination of activists.
Al-Pachachi also refers that the recent statements of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former Iranian president, place Iran and the militias associated with it, within the circle of accusation of being directly responsible for a large part of the attacks that affected Iraq. he considers that ISIS’ adoption of the operation carries benefits for both parties. For ISIS, it wants to appear that it still possesses great power in Iraq, while Iran wants to take advantage of ISIS’s threat to embarrass Al-Kazemi and his government and show the importance of retaining the militia’s weapons.
The former Iranian president had revealed in his statements that there are strong relations between the Iranian regime and extremist organizations, including the Taliban, and that the Iranian regime is part of a diabolical plan targeting the region as a whole.
In the same context, Hossam Youssef, a political analyst, explains that the attacks in Iraq have two main aspects, the first is the perpetrator and the second is the adopter of those attacks.
“Iran and the militias are exploiting their influence inside Iraq to reach the detonation points to carry out these attacks, as ISIS elements do not have the same ability to reach the sensitive points, and after the implementation comes the role of ISIS to adopt the operation and provide the largest service to the Iranians,” he adds.
“How can a besieged, hunted, and powerless organization reach highly guarded areas and security measures with all those quantities of explosives, especially since the areas of organization’s spread and influence are very far from the locations of the attacks?” Youssef asks.
“Only one party is able to deliver all these quantities of explosives, namely the militias and their supporters, which are not subject to inspections,” he adds.
Iran and strange coincidences
What distinguishes the new wave of explosions in Iraq from its predecessor is that it coincides with the Iraqi government’s disclosure of the identity of the main suspect in the murder of Hisham al-Hashimi, a security analyst, according to Salah Allawi, a strategic analyst. Allawi also points out that the killer’s association with the Iraqi Hezbollah militia will once again raise the issue of militia weapons and the file of the assassination of Iraqi activists, with greater momentum ahead of parliamentary elections.
The Iraqi government had announced earlier that al-Hashimi’s killer was named Ahmed Al-Kinani, a police officer with the rank of first lieutenant in the Interior Ministry, belonging to an “outlaw group,” as it described it. Private sources had confirmed that the officer who confessed to killing Al-Hashimi, a member of an armed Shiite faction, has carried out a series of operations against activists and journalists in recent years.
Allawi said the proliferation of security events ahead of the elections underscores the political objectives behind the attacks, particularly as they have hit vital centers in the country, including airports, hospitals and attacks on power and electricity towers.
Allawi also considers that ISIS and its ideology do not focus as much on political and electoral objectives as on the religious ideological aspect and security damage, which raises many questions about the issue of ISIS’s adoption of some of these attacks.
“The real objective of targeting Shiite areas and linking these attacks to ISIS seeks to create more pretexts to keep the militias’ weapons, stoke sectarian fires in the country and embarrass the Al-Kazemi government,” Allawi explains, noting that ISIS appears only in critical cases, which are close to Militia weapon.
