Hezbollah Releases Audio Files of Iraqi Officer's Phone Coordination with CIA against Hashd Al-Shaabi

Iraq's Hezbollah popular group released a series of audio files revealing phone talks and Whatsapp chats between a senior Iraqi officer in al-Anbar province and the US spy agency, CIA, against Iraq's Hashd al-Shaabi (popular forces).

News ID: 445882

Date: 07 July 2019 - 15:31

RNA - The audio files disclosed contacts between Mahmoud al-Falahi, the commander of al-Anbar operations in the Iraqi army, with a CIA agent who is an Iraqi national.

The CIA agent asked al-Falahi to provide him with the geographical coordinates of the existing military bases at the borders between Iraq and Syria "to be attacked by the US and Israeli air forces".

He also told al-Falahi to meet with "the US army and intelligence service commanders in Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan region or at the US forces' base in al-Habaniyeh" in Western Iraq.

During the conversations, al-Falahi provided the detailed coordinates of military bases in al-Anbar to the agent.

Hezbollah described the audio files as documents showing al-Falahi's "plot against the Iraqi army, security, Hashd al-Shaabi and resistance forces ", warning that his spying for the CIA and Israeli Mossad spy agencies has endangered Iran's national security.

Iraqi security sources disclosed in 2016 that Washington was exerting pressure on the Baghdad government to end Hashd al-Shaabi's partnership in war against ISIL and dissolve the militia army that has the lion share in the war on terrorism in the country.

"The US government has conveyed the message to the Iraqi government through its diplomats that there is no need to Hashd al-Shaabi forces and their role should come to an end," a senior Iraqi source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Fars News Agency at the time.

A senior member of the Iraqi parliament revealed last month the US plots and attempts to dissolve Hashd al-Shaabi with pressures on Iraq's government after the popular forces regained control over Iraq's borders with Syria.

The Arabic-language al-Ma'aloumeh news website quoted Odai Awad as saying that the US was pressuring Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi to force him act against Hashd al-Shaabi.

He referred to the US embassy's contacts with the ISIL commanders, and said certain regions in Iraq are showing allegiance to the ISIL again in a way that a number of Iraqi security commanders have compared the situation to the situation in 2014.

Awad said that the US pressures started after Hashd al-Shaabi forces retook control over the Iraqi-Syrian borders, adding that at present, some measures are being adopted against Hashd al-Shaabi on the political and international scene in a bid to disturb the public opinion in freed areas.

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