Killing of intelligence officer ‘proves militias are afraid of security forces’

A senior intelligence officer was shot and killed yesterday in Baghdad in a grim reminder of the assassinations that engulfed the country years ago.

Lt Col Mahmoud Hussein was walking outside his brother-in-law’s house in Mansour, in the west of the city, just after sunset, when he was shot with a pistol fitted with a silencer, the Iraqi National Intelligence Service said.

Security camera footage showed a man wearing a white cap run up to Hussein from behind and kick his leg to drop him to the ground, before shooting him in the head and fleeing.

The officer worked at the Intelligence Service Counter-Espionage Department, the service said. The authorities are investigating.

The manner of the assassination in one of Baghdad’s busiest commercial and residential areas has raised questions.

“This is the first time in years that a senior intelligence officer has been killed in this way,” a member of the agency told The National.

“We used to see such attacks during 2003-2006 when many of Baghdad’s areas were under the control of the militants, but at this time and in this way indicates that the intelligence services have entered a political game.”

The intelligence service has been heavily involved in recent months in hunting down ISIS militants in Iraq, especially senior field leaders.

Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhimi, the former intelligence chief, ordered a shakeup of the service in January after an ISIS suicide bombing in Baghdad. The move was interpreted as a purge of Iranlinked officers from the service.

Iran-backed militias in Iraq have accused some intelligence officers of co-operating with the US in the killing of top Iranian general Qassem Suleimani last year.

Senior Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis was also killed in the drone strike outside Baghdad airport on January 3.

The militias accuse Mr Al Kadhimi of allowing foreign influence in the intelligence service.

“There is an unhidden fight between the Iran-backed and US-backed camps with the intelligence service at its heart,” a member of the Iraqi Parliament’s Security Committee told The National.

“Since taking office in May last year, Al Kadhimi has relied heavily on the intelligence and counter-terrorism services because he trusts them a lot and they are not infiltrated by Iran proxies,” said the MP.

Mr Al Kadhimi has tried to rein in the influence of the Iran-backed militias but failed.

In one incident, the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service arrested 14 militiamen for planning a rocket attack on Baghdad’s Green Zone, but they were released days later and the case against them dropped.

However, he has taken small but important steps to restrict their moneymaking activities at airports, ports and through government payroll scams.

The prime minister “is purging Iran-backed militias from Iraq’s intelligence services from the top down, starting with leaders, and then to ports, airports and borders,” said Michael Knights, a fellow at the Washington Institute think tank.

“A killing like this proves that the militias are afraid of the growing strength of the Iraqi security forces under Al Kadhimi,” he said.

High-profile assassinations and bomb attacks, once common in Iraq, have been rare since the Iraqi security forces and US troops launched military operations in early 2008.