Baghdad, Dec. 05 – Iran is sending heaps of campaign posters to Iraq for the upcoming December 15 elections in trucks crossing the Iran-Iraq border.
A security official in Baghdad said that the trucks were bringing posters in through border crossings in the provinces of al-Amara and al-Kut, southern Iraq.
The campaign posters were all in favour of Shiite Iraqi groups and personalities with extensive ties to Tehran, among them Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim.
Iran has been actively helping its long-time ally, al-Hakim, the cleric who heads the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Based in Iran for two decades before the U.S.-led war that toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, al-Hakim led the Badr Brigades, the military wing of SCIRI, in a violent cross border struggle against Iraqi forces.
Al-Hakim’s close Iranian ties and growing influence in Iraq has led many to fear that Iraq was heading toward closer ties with Iran, and, possibly, the establishment of a government based on Iran’s theocratic model.
