Iran Focus: Baghdad, Dec. 05 Iran is sending heaps of campaign posters to Iraq for the upcoming December 15 elections in trucks crossing the Iran-Iraq border, Iran Focus has learnt. Iran Focus
Baghdad, Dec. 05 Iran is sending heaps of campaign posters to Iraq for the upcoming December 15 elections in trucks crossing the Iran-Iraq border, Iran Focus has learnt.
A security official in Baghdad told Iran Focus that the trucks were bringing posters in through border crossings in the provinces of al-Amara and al-Kut, southern Iraq.
The campaign posters were all in favour of Shiite Iraqi groups and personalities with extensive ties to Tehran, among them Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim.
Iran has been actively helping its long-time ally, al-Hakim, the cleric who heads the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Based in Iran for two decades before the U.S.-led war that toppled Saddam Husseins regime in 2003, al-Hakim led the Badr Brigades, the military wing of SCIRI, in a violent cross border struggle against Iraqi forces.
Al-Hakims close Iranian ties and growing influence in Iraq has led many to fear that Iraq was heading toward closer ties with Iran, and, possibly, the establishment of a government based on Iran’s theocratic model.
