ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - An Iraqi pro-Iran armed group on Friday threatened the United Arab Emirates (UAE), warning of “removal from the map” if it continues what it described as efforts to draw Gulf countries into a direct confrontation with Iran.
“We warn the UAE… against continuing its attempts coordinated with the Zionist entity to drag Gulf states into a ‘direct confrontation’ with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Saraya Awliya al-Dam spokesperson Abu Mahdi al-Jaafari said in a statement on the group’s Telegram channel.
“We say to the UAE that your attempt to expand the front of aggression against Iran may hasten your removal from the map,” he added.
Iraqi pro-Iran armed groups operating under the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq” umbrella have repeatedly targeted what they claim are US interests in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, with several strikes on Gulf countries believed to have been launched from Iraqi territory.
In early March, Saraya Awliya al-Dam, which has claimed attacks against the Kurdistan Region, said it fired one-way drones into Jordan in support of Iran in the war against the United States and Israel.
Gulf countries said in a joint statement on Wednesday that they “renew their condemnation in the strongest terms” of attacks launched from Iraqi territory, calling on Baghdad to halt strikes targeting regional countries, their facilities, and infrastructure. The statement was issued by Kuwait’s foreign ministry and included the UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Jordan.
The countries said that while they “value their fraternal relations” with Iraq, they “call on the Iraqi government to take the necessary measures to immediately stop the attacks launched by factions, militias, and armed groups” from its territory toward neighboring countries “in order to preserve fraternal relations and avoid further escalation.”
Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein told Rudaw on Sunday that Baghdad has been unable to curb pro-Iran armed groups, citing their military and political influence. “They also have power; they have military power, organizational power, and parliamentary power,” he said.
In its statement on Friday, the group called on the Iraqi parliament’s security committee and “resistance parliamentarians” to raise the Iraqi flag over the US Victoria Base near Baghdad International Airport “so that it will not be targeted again.” The airport and its vicinity have faced repeated drone and missile attacks by pro-Iran armed groups.
The statement also said that “the decrease in the pace of Islamic Resistance operations” is due to “bad weather conditions” and “the fleeing” of US forces “from some of their bases in Iraq and the region.”