Thousands Protest in Baghdad as Cleric Calls for army Takeover of Shia Paramilitary

YemenExtra

Y.A

Thousands of supporters of Shia cleric and political leader Muqtada al-Sadr fill Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, Friday, rallying for electoral reform and against government corruption.

Addressing the government , al-Sadr demanded to integrate the Shia-majority paramilitary group Hashed al-Shaabi or Popular Mobilisation Unit (PMF) into the country’s armed forces, calling for militias outside the government’s control to be disarmed.

His statement comes due to the cleric’s visit’s to Saudi Arabia over the weekend for the first time in a decade, where he met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Jeddah to discuss bilateral ties between the two countries.

The Iraqi state-sponsored PMF, made up for some 40 predominantly Shia elements, is at the forefront of the counter-attack against the self-proclaimed “Daesh”, backed by Saudi Arabia,and was assembled on the call of Iraq’s grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in the summer of 2014.

Despite Iraqi officials liaising with the paramilitary’s representatives and the group’s support from Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, the PMU is a seperate entity from the Iraqi Armed Forces .

Al-Sadr originally called for the demonstration in order to object Iraq’s current electoral system ahead of the country’s 2018 elections, attracking attention to a new law being prepared for parliament that would allegedly favour larger political parties.