Sadr tells Iran and Iraqi armed groups to keep Iraq out of the war

NAJAF — Muqtada al-Sadr called on Iran, Iraqi armed groups and Gulf states on Wednesday to stop drawing Iraq into the regional conflict, hours after U.S. and Saudi aircraft struck Popular Mobilization Forces sites across seven governorates.

In a statement, Sadr said Iraq “should not become a launching point for bombing the Islamic Republic,” urged “our brothers in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard not to bomb our independent and sacred land,” and called on “the rogue militias not to provide a pretext for our brothers in the Gulf states to target our sacred land.”

He condemned “the targeting of Iraq’s sacred territory by all countries and parties” alongside “the actions of the rogue militias seeking to drag Iraq into a war from which it has nothing to gain,” and urged all sides not to “be dragged behind the plans of the American-Zionist enemy.”

Sadr called on the government “to establish security, impose sovereignty, work seriously for the safety of the Iraqi people and its sanctities, and avoid sectarian divisions,” and warned of “sleeper terrorist cells at home and abroad, which will exploit sectarian tensions as a pretext to destabilize security in sacred Iraq.” He said Iraq needed peace, adding that “we have fought enough wars that have exhausted all of Iraq’s capabilities and its dignity.” He closed by describing the statement as a call for peace to all neighboring countries: “Let us live away from military bases, normalization and destructive colonial hegemony.”

Sadr led the Mahdi Army, which fought U.S. and Iraqi government forces after 2003 and was implicated in the 2006-08 civil war. He disbanded it in 2008. Saraya al-Salam, the armed wing he formed in 2014 to fight the Islamic State group, operates within the PMF and is among the factions that have moved to comply with the government’s weapons-control plan.

U.S. Central Command said it had carried out joint airstrikes with Saudi forces against Iran-aligned militia positions, in response to more than 30 drone attacks it said targeted Saudi Arabia over the previous 72 hours.

Saudi Arabia confirmed its participation, saying it had coordinated with CENTCOM against militia targets linked to attacks on oil facilities in the Eastern Province and Riyadh, and that it does not seek escalation but will respond to attacks on the kingdom.

The PMF said its headquarters were hit in Baghdad, Wasit, Nineveh, Basra, Kirkuk, Karbala and Diyala, and in a later statement put the toll at at least 20 killed and 32 wounded, describing the figures as preliminary.