Iraqi PM hails Ayatollah Sistani’s role in terror fight

The Iraqi premier has thanked Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Hosseini Sistani for his contribution to the fight against Daesh Takfiri terrorists, saying his 2014 religious decree (fatwa), which mobilized volunteer forces behind army troops on the battlefield, “saved” the West Asian state.

In June 2014, shortly after Daesh unleashed its terror campaign in Iraq, Ayatollah Sistani issued a fatwa calling on all Iraqi citizens to defend their country.

 “Citizens who are able to bear arms and fight terrorists, defending their country and their people and their holy places, should volunteer and join the security forces to achieve this holy purpose,” said a Ayatollah Sistani representative in his sermon at Friday prayers in the holy Iraqi city of Karbala at the time.

The fatwa helped Shia and Sunni Muslims as well as Christian and Yezidi volunteers gather under one umbrella of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), commonly known as Hashd al-Sha’abi, to prevent Daesh’s advances.

The Iraqi parliament last year recognized Hashd al-Sha’abi as an official force with similar rights as those of the regular army.

In a statement issued on Friday, Abadi offered his “deep thanks” to Grand Ayatollah Sistani for “his great and continuing support to the heroic fighters.” He also stressed that the Shia cleric’s 2014 call “saved Iraq and paved the way for victory” over Daesh.

Abadi’s remarks came one day after he announced an end to Daesh’s “state of falsehood” following the recapture of Mosul’s landmark Grand al-Nuri Mosque, from where the terror outfit proclaimed its so-called caliphate three years ago.

Separately on Friday, Saqer Ayad, a member of Iraqi Federal Police, said that fighting was underway in Mosul’s Old City.

“The enemy is taking its last breath. We’ve surrounded the terrorists in Old Mosul from three directions, the west, south and north,” he said.

SS