September 2,
2024
During Arbaeen,
Iraqis traditionally dress is black. This Shiite religious ritual marks the end
of 40 days of mourning for Imam Hussain, the grandson of Islamic Prophet
Muhammad, who died in the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD.
Thousands take part in a mourning event to mark Arbaeen in Iraq's southern city of Karbala on August 24, 2024. © Karar Essa / Anadolu via Getty Images
A key event of
Arbaeen is the 80km pilgrimage from the city of Najaf to the holy city of
Karbala, where the mausoleum of Imam Hussain is located. Along the way, over 20
million pilgrims from Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain, Palestine,
Pakistan, India, Africa and many other countries may receive free food, medical
care, and accommodation.
However, in
recent years, Arbaeen has also become a political platform – it allows millions
of Muslims to speak out about pressing issues. And of course, this primarily
concerns Palestine.
On the way to
Karbala, we pass a small Palestinian town, where this year there is a photo
exhibition dedicated to the massacre in Gaza. There, we find Sunni scholars and
Palestinians who describe the horrors which they and their families have
experienced. Journalists from over a dozen Middle Eastern media outlets cover
the story.
Along the way,
the faithful mourn the victims of the war in Palestine. However, many
Palestinians insist that this is not a war but a real genocide, since on the
Palestinian side most of the victims are civilians, not soldiers.
The world is
heading towards war, and it will begin in the Middle East
On the streets
of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, Palestinian flags and portraits of the
recently assassinated chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau, Ismail Haniyeh,
are displayed alongside images of Iranian Lieutenant General Qasem Soleimani
and the deputy head of the coalition of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, Abu
Mahdi al-Muhandis. The latter two men died on January 3, 2020, in the course of
a US airstrike on Baghdad International Airport.
After the
assassination of another Hamas leader, Saleh al-Arouri, I talked with a friend,
a poet from Beirut, who said, “The constantly-spilling blood of the national
heroes of Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, and Yemen does not merely go
into the ground. It fills the veins of the Axis of Resistance, giving this
organism more strength and energy.”
The Iraqis await
retribution
Few in the Arab
world are as eager to wage war with Israel as the Iraqi resistance forces. And
their response is not limited to waiting. The Iraqis, like Yemen’s Houthis,
often demonstrate their belligerent attitude towards the US and Israel. For a
while, they halted their military operations out of solidarity with official
Baghdad, but after the Israeli strikes on Lebanon and Iran, Iraqi resistance
fighters again attacked US military facilities on their territory. For example,
in early August, they attacked the Al-Asad Airbase base, reportedly wounding
several US soldiers.
As a
high-ranking source in the Resistance told me on condition of anonymity, “forcing
the enemy to wait for the response is also part of the response. Psychological
warfare is just the beginning. The response will follow and will correspond to
the scale of the crime.”
- Recently,
there’s been some information on the internet indicating that Saudi Arabia
plans to normalize relations with Israel if a Palestinian state is
created. What do you think about this?
- Saudi Arabia
has already formed an alliance with Israel, even if it has not yet officially
announced it, so the only logical option for the liberation and resistance
forces is to consider the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia an enemy.
- Do you think
that the US elections will somehow influence the situation in the region?
- America is
America. Nothing will change, no matter who is the president – whether it’s
Trump, Biden, or Satan himself.
The Lebanese
attack
A few days ago,
Hezbollah carried out the biggest attack on Israel since the start of the
current conflict. It fired about 230 missiles at northern Israel, overloading
the Iron Dome missile defense system, and launched dozens of drones which hit
specific targets – namely, Israel’s Miron, Zaatun, and Sahel military bases, as
well as bases in the Golan Heights and several barracks.
According to the
secretary general of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, the movement has not yet
decided to use strategic missiles, but will definitely do so in the near
future. The Hezbollah leadership added that this was only the first stage of
the response by the Axis of Resistance. This means that Israel should expect
new strikes.
Meanwhile, Tel
Aviv said that it had taken countermeasures in advance and sent 100 aircraft to
bomb Hezbollah’s military facilities in Lebanon.
Despite the fact
that both sides deny that any damage has been inflicted on them by the enemy,
we may draw several important conclusions.
Firstly,
Hezbollah has raised the stakes and intensified its attacks on Israel.
Secondly, we can expect a response to the recent attacks on Beirut and Tehran,
but it will be different from what most experts imagined. Most likely, this
response will be phased and stretched out in time. And finally, the threat of a
major war is still relevant since the Israeli leadership is unwilling to make
concessions and the Resistance forces intend to follow the path of escalation
to the end if there are no other options.
In an exclusive
comment to RT, Iranian political analyst Mohammad Marandi explained why
Hezbollah’s strike may be called a success.
“It was
obviously very successful. The Israeli disinformation turned out to be clearly
a disaster [and] untrue as we saw in the speech of Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah and
there was no response from the Israeli regime which shows that it is fearful of
an escalation or at least its Western backers and Americans are fearful of an
escalation. I think after this we’re going to see strikes from Iran and Yemen.
The Israeli regime carried out a war crime in Yemen by bombing a port and
killing innocent people so they will be punished and of course the Iranian
retaliation to the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh will be coming soon so the
Israelis should continue to be worried about their safety and security.”
Commenting on a
possible regional war, Marandi said a lot will depend on the US.
“Everything is
in the hands of the Americans. If they yank hard on the leash of Netanyahu,
then of course there won’t be escalation because the Israeli regime is
completely dependent on the West and Washington in particular for weapons,
ammunition, for financial assistance and political cover. It is completely
vulnerable and weak and if the Americans withdrew their support, they would
have to halt the genocide immediately and of course they would have no way of
escalating. So everything depends on the Americans. But the Israeli regime has
already escalated and it will be punished. There’s no way out of it.
“Iran has to
create deterrence. Otherwise the Netanyahu regime will commit further
atrocities. The same is true with Lebanon, the same is true with Yemen, and of
course the same is true with the Palestinian people,” Marandi concluded.
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