Iraq .. Why do Shiite factions hesitate to target American forces?

Loay Al-Musli - Baghdad

Armed Shiite factions - including Muqtada al-Sadr's Peace Brigades - are mobilizing to a demonstration that they will "be million" in Baghdad and the southern provinces on Friday, January 24, to achieve more public pressure to get American forces out of Iraq.

This demonstration was preceded by major threats by these factions against the interests of the United States and its soldiers in Iraq, but nothing happened on the ground despite the passage of two weeks after the killing of Abu Mahdi, the engineer of the deputy head of the Popular Mobilization and the commander of the Iranian Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, by an American raid near Baghdad airport.

A few days ago, the "Hezbollah Brigades", an elite faction of the Shiite factions, said that they might enter an armed confrontation with the American forces in Iraq "at any moment."

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"The resistance movements believe that armed resistance to the foreign military presence is the last option that can be achieved to achieve their goals, and from this the resistance leaders' decision was to give the state’s institutions sufficient and appropriate time to get out," said Mahmoud al-Rubaie, spokesman for the political office of the "Asaib Ahl al-Haq" movement led by Qais Khazali. These forces are from Iraq. "

He added, "We applaud the clear harmony between the recent parliament’s decision to withdraw forces and the government's clear desire to implement this decision, and we believe that popular pressure through the millions of demonstrations called by faction leaders will have a positive impact toward achieving the goals."

But al-Rubaie confirms at the same time, "the factions' readiness to attack the Americans at the time it sets," and he also believes that the Americans "will withdraw from Iraq without engaging in armed confrontation."

Since the engineer was killed, Katyusha rockets have been fired "unknown" at the American embassy in Baghdad, and at the Taji and Balad bases north of the capital, where there are American forces, but none of these rockets hit the Americans, and the PMF announced that it did not adopt them.

Difficult speculation
"It is not possible to speculate on the reactions of the factions," the security expert, Fadhel Abu Ragheef, told Al-Jazeera Net. "The response delay may come to unite efforts so that they are not fragmented and dispersed if they take any military action."

"Some of them are afraid and afraid of confrontation, others are motivated by enthusiasm, and others want revenge, but the outcome remains unclear at present, except for the hesitation or inheritance of these factions to attack the Americans."

Commenting on this, retired military brigadier general Ziyad al-Ani believes that "the armed Shiite factions do not want to lose the gains they have achieved during the past six years, and are looking for legal and diplomatic mechanisms to remove the American forces so that they do not reach the stage of military clash."

He says to Al-Jazeera Net, "The indications currently available indicate the reluctance of these factions to attack the Americans, especially as they did not target American interests despite the assassination of the engineer, who is the most prominent and most important military commander in them, and this indicates that the military option for them has not been decided yet."

According to the statement of the Nujaba movement led by Akram al-Kaabi, one of the armed factions that did not join the popular crowd, "the Iraqi resistance factions have given an opportunity and duration to the government and parliament to take diplomatic and political ways to end the foreign presence."

According to observers, the armed factions that threaten US forces "fear" a strong American response if they attacked them, since the attack on the American embassy in Baghdad on December 31, 2019 was the price of Soleimani, the engineer, and another group of fighters.