ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The head of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) on Friday said that the conflict between the Syrian regime and the rebels is “an internal matter,” but added that Iraq cannot “turn a blind eye” to “terrorist groups” ruling Syria.
“What is happening in Syria is an internal matter when it is happening between a government and an opposition, and Iraq has no connection with it,” PMF chief Faleh al-Fayyadh said during a speech at a forum for dignitaries and Nineveh tribal sheikhs.
Some factions within the PMF are closely aligned with pro-Iran regional groups like Hezbollah, which back the Syrian regime. The PMF are among thousands of soldiers from the Iraqi armed forces and border police that have been deployed along the Iraq-Syria border in Anbar province.
Fayyadh said that Iraq needs to “be prepared” for any situation, especially “when the tools [of the conflict] are terrorist groups.”
“We do not have any connection with the political changes happening in Syria, whether the right or the left was ruling, but we have all the connection and effect when the terrorist groups control Syria supported by international agenda and foreign interference,” he said.
Iraq is concerned that it may be affected by a surge in Syria’s civil conflict that began last week when a coalition of Syrian rebels led by the Islamists Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) launched a blistering offensive against the Syrian army. They took control of the northern city of Aleppo, the most populated urban center in the country, and then advanced into the strategic central province of Hama, capturing the city on Thursday when the Syrian army announced its withdrawal.
Iraqi forces have been put on high alert. A large-scale operation is underway to enhance border security, including digging trenches and constructing three-meter-high fortified walls.
HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani on Thursday called on Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani not to allow Iraqi armed groups to get involved in the conflict and said his fighters will not pose a threat to Iraq’s national security.
The PMF is a former paramilitary umbrella group of predominantly Shiite armed forces that was established in 2014 following a fatwa, a religious edict, in response to the Islamic State (ISIS) when it obliterated a stretch of the Iraq-Syria border and declared its so-called caliphate. The force has been embedded into Iraq's security apparatus and is officially under the rule of Sudani as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces but sometimes does not follow his orders.
