🔻Hours after the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced the joint attack with Saudi Arabia on positions of Iran-backed forces in Iraq, media outlets close to military sources in Iran said the targets of these attacks were Hashd al-Shaabi bases in the provinces of Karbala and Nineveh.

Hashd al-Shaabi is a collection of Iraqi Shiite forces supported by Iran, and the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has such a close relationship with them that it considers them one of the pillars of what is referred to in the region as the “Axis of Resistance.”

The attacks, which Iranian sources have also reported as continuing in Diyala and Kirkuk, are taking place on the eve of the Arbaeen ceremony in southern Iraq, which every year brings hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims to these areas, especially Karbala.

The Iraqi government has not yet officially responded to the early Wednesday morning attacks by Saudi Arabia and the United States on the territory of this country, but yesterday it said it would look into Saudi Arabia’s claim of drone attacks from Iraqi soil to Saudi Arabia and would not allow such attacks to take shape.

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