"Electronic armies" are active in Iraq with the increase of US-Iranian tensions ..

"Electronic armies" are active in Iraq with the increase of US-Iranian tensions ..



2019/09/06 03:06:57
 
Iraqi activists, journalists and bloggers face a campaign of accusations and threats through anonymous Internet accounts and suspected links to Iranian-backed factions in a politically divided country on the back of Iranian-US tensions in the region.

Political parties, armed factions and officials in Iraq have been benefiting from so-called "electronic armies" for years for propaganda purposes or, on the contrary, ridiculing and attacking their critics. According to an AFP report.

But these online rivalries have increased in recent months as tensions between the United States and Iran, supporters of the Iraqi government, escalate and sometimes turn into death threats. There has been no actual attack so far.

Since mid-July, five weapons stores and camps belonging to the Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces have been bombed or raided. The PMF blamed Israel and the United States for the attacks and blamed "agents" who contributed to the attacks.

The accusation opened the way for an online campaign against a wide range of Iraqi citizens accused of collaborating with Israel and the United States.

The pages, whose owners do not know the list of names and pictures of bloggers and a book that read: "Some of these bloggers do not know the real objectives of the project of creating a collective Iraqi awareness of normalization with Israel, and they worked for money only."

A number of prominent journalists were included on the list, including journalist Omar al-Shaher, researcher and writer Hisham al-Hashemi, journalist and writer Ali Wajih, cartoonist Ahmed Falah, presenter Jumana Mumtaz, prominent blogger Shuja'a Fares, journalist Reza al-Shammari, activists Steven Nabil, and Saqr al-Zakaria. And Hussein Ali, and Omar Mohammed.

Following the escalation, blogger Ali Wajih sent a letter to Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, head of the Popular Mobilization Commission Faleh al-Fayyad and his deputy Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes asking for support.

"For years, we, a group of media and bloggers, have been inciting to kill us from bloggers and pages that indicate that they are close to or affiliated with the commission," he said.

"Please indicate whether there is a directive to incite our blood, and accuse a group of national media on ridiculous and empty charges, the first being" normalization with Israel "or" employment ", and we expect you to indicate clearly, whether these pages and personalities belong to you ".

Baghdad has had close ties with the United States since the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003. The government, in which the Shi'ites are powerful, has good relations with Tehran. Iran backs the Popular Mobilization Forces, which are fighting alongside government forces and have considerable influence in Iraqi politics.



DANGEROUS LEVELS

Over the past months, Iraq has been hit by the escalating war of words between the United States and Iran.

Last week, political figures criticized the US-funded al-Hurra for a documentary about corruption in Iraq's Shiite and Sunni religious institutions.

As a result, the Iraqi Media and Communications Commission suspended the license of Al-Hurra for three months and demanded an official apology.

"Local interests and entrenched rivalries have been integrated into the ongoing tensions between the axis of resistance led by Iran on the one hand and the United States, Israel and its allies in the region," said Fanar Haddad, an Iraq expert at the National University of Singapore.

"When your name is linked to the Israeli camp, you are in greater danger than ever," said writer and blogger Omar al-Shaher, who has previously been threatened by jihadist groups.

"The message is clear: if you oppose us, you will be killed," says historian Omar Mohammed, who documented the atrocities in Mosul under the Islamic State. "Murder is easy in Iraq."

"I suspect that the new accusations are the result of the recent (alleged) Israeli air strikes and the US-Iranian tensions," he told AFP from outside Iraq.

The Observatory for Journalistic Freedoms, an independent media rights advocacy organization, expressed concern this week that such incitement could lead to real violence.

He said in a statement that "unknown parties incite the killing of Iraqi journalists and prominent writers, and charges them unrealistic charges, and publish their photos and information about them accusing them of working for Israel."

He added that "the phenomenon of electronic armies has reached dangerous levels," noting that it "issued threats, including incitement to violence and hatred."

The statement criticized "the continued silence of the authorities so far, including the judiciary, in the clear abandonment of their responsibilities when it comes to cybercrime."

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