BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The so-called "Jund al-Imam al-Hajja" militant group vowed Tuesday to target US forces in Iraq in response to a fatwa issued by religious authority Kazem al-Haeri. A video of a group of masked gunmen appeared during their missile training.
One of the leaders of the armed organization made a statement in which he vowed to target the American forces and make them a lesson after what he described its arrogance and tyranny to attack Iraq, its people and forces, stressing that "US military and civilian bases are legitimate targets, and we will not stop until the last infidel soldier."
The Shiite cleric Kazem al-Haeri said last Friday that "anti-Zionist planes supported by US forces in the region are the ones who carried out repeated attacks on the headquarters of the Popular Mobilization," and the fatwa "to keep any US military force and the like, and under any title," stressing that no Choice but to resist, defend and confront the enemy.
In a related context, Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr called on the Iraqi government to accelerate the investigation into reports that Israel bombed sites of the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq.
Sadr said in a tweet on his account on the social networking site Twitter "The Iraqi government should speed up the verification of the matter, even under international supervision."
He also called for "confining arms to the state and to close all the headquarters and hand over all stores to the state, otherwise the violator will put Iraq and Iraqis at great risk and be the cause of its destruction."
It is noteworthy that several explosions occurred recently in the stores of weapons of the crowd forces, the latest bombing two Israeli planes marching the location of one of his brigades in the far western province of Anbar.
The crowd blamed the United States, while signaling Israel's involvement.
The New York Times last Friday quoted unnamed US officials as saying that Israel had carried out several attacks in Iraq on the PMU ammunition depot.
While in Kiev last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted at a role for Tel Aviv in targeting the PMF headquarters. "Iran has no immunity anywhere," he said. "We are moving against it whenever necessary."