Hawzah News Agency - According to the Communication and Media Affairs Centre of al-Nujaba in Iran, the Washington, DC-based Jamestown Foundation for Global Research and Terrorism Analysis gave attention to the recent visit of Hujjat al-Islam al-Kaabi, the secretary-general of al-Nujaba, to Iran.
John Foulkes, a program associate at the think tank, wrote a report which has been published on the Jamestown Foundation’s website in which he stated, “On October 28, Akram al-Kaabi, a Shia cleric and secretary-general of Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba (HHN), threatened to launch ‘lethal attacks’ against the United States, unless the country completely withdraws from Iraq.”
Quoting Hujjat al-Islam al-Kaabi, the author of the report added, “At a press conference in Tehran, al-Kaabi stated, ‘Not only the various groups of the resistance in Iraq but also all Iraqi people from all walks of life are calling for the withdrawal of American troops. Eventually, the Americans will have to leave Iraq and go home forever.’”
Referring to the anti-American record of the secretary-general of al-Nujaba, the American thinktank noted, “al-Kaabi, who has been working with the al-Nujaba movement against American influence for many years, was one of the main commanders of the al-Mahdi Army after its formation and was one of the founders of Asaib Ahl al-Haqq (AAH). For this reason, he was designated as a specially designated global terrorist by the United States’ State Department in 2008 for planning and conducting multiple attacks against the Iraqi government and coalition forces.”
Acknowledging the influential presence of al-Nujaba in the anti-Daesh campaign in Syria and Iraq, Foulkes continued, “In March 2019, the United States Treasury Department sanctioned al-Kaabi, al-Nujaba, and its media affiliate, Nujaba TV, citing the group’s closeness to Qasem Soleymani, then-leader the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the secretary-General of Hezbollah, Sayyid Hasan Nasrallah.”
The above report described the period after the assassination of the martyrs Soleymani and al-Muhandis as a new chapter in the creation of Hujjat al-Islam al-Kaabi and stated, “al-Kaabi gained prominence during this period as a result of being photographed with Esmail Qaani, Soleymani’s successor as head of the Quds Force of the IRGC. He attended al-Muhandis’ funeral, and soon after organized a meeting with Muqtada al-Sadr and several militia leaders of the Popular Mobilization Forces at his office to discuss a response to the American airstrike and how to present a united front.”
The opposition thinktank called Hujjat al-Islam al-Kaabi one of the alternative figures in the Iraqi Islamic Resistance to fill the void left by the martyr Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and added, “During his recent visit to Tehran, the secretary-general warned the United States through a press conference that failure to meet the stated conditions will not guarantee the continuation of the ‘temporary ceasefire.’”
At the end of its report, the Jamestown Foundation wrote, “[Akram al-Kaabi] commands an estimated 10000 fighters in Iraq, who are veterans of the campaigns against opposition groups and [Daesh] in Syria and Iraq. If and when the Iranian-backed militias, including [al-Nujaba], start attacking American facilities again, one should expect to see al-Kaabi justifying the attacks and supporting Iranian influence in Iraq.”