The leader of the coalition of the rule of law in Iraq, Nuri al-Maliki, called on Friday to "not to attack the popular crowd or detract from it," and called "everyone with restraint."
Al-Maliki said - in a tweet on his account on the social networking site Twitter - that "the popular crowd is the leader of victory and a title for the strength of the people and the state.
He added, "The state is our state and the anti-terror forces are our sons, whom we cherish their jihad and their bravery, and it is not permissible to derogate from them and from every national force of the state."
Al-Maliki called "everyone to exercise self-restraint and take care to solve problems with a responsible national patriot, away from foreign hatred and interference."
Hezbollah's response
And Iraqi special forces had launched a security operation south of Baghdad at dawn on Friday to arrest about 50 members of the Iraqi Hezbollah, one of the armed Shiite factions represented in the Popular Mobilization Committee, and seize a Katyusha missile platform that the authorities said was used to bomb Baghdad International Airport, buildings and government sites.
Hours after that operation, members of the Hezbollah Brigades stormed the headquarters of the Iraqi Army's Counter-Terrorism Service, in the Green Zone, in the center of the capital, Baghdad.
On the other hand, hundreds of Iraqis demonstrated in Baghdad's Tahrir Square, on Friday, in support of the government's move against the Iranian-backed Iraqi Hezbollah, and the arrest of a number of its members.
Chaos
Qais Khazali, leader of the Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq party, an armed Shiite faction in Iraq, said that the raid on the headquarters of the Hezbollah Brigades and the arrest of its members was a “dangerous development”.
Khazali said, in a televised speech, that "directing Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kazimi to arrest members of the crowd through the anti-terrorist apparatus is a complete chaos." He considered that "the survival of the American forces in Iraq is an occupation, especially after the parliament voted to remove it."
The Hezbollah battalions face charges from Washington of being behind the missile attacks that have targeted the American embassy in Baghdad for months, and Iraqi military bases hosting American soldiers throughout the country.
The frequency of these attacks has increased since the assassination of each of the Quds Force commander, Qassem Soleimani, and the leader of the Popular Mobilization Authority, Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, in a US air raid in Baghdad on January 3.