Iraqi police arrested on Wednesday a member of Iraqi 'Hezbollah' for being involved in a shooting that killed a policeman and wounded at least two people in central Baghdad, an interior ministry official said.
Iraqi police surrounded the Baghdad headquarters of the Hezbollah Brigades in Palestine Street, after 5 hours of an armed clash with law enforcement. No one was allowed into or out of the region until the members responsible for the attack were handed over.
Interior Ministry sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the handover was carried out under the supervision of Interior Minister Qasim al-Araji and the presence of the head of the parliamentary security committee, Hakim al-Zamili.
Dozens of armored vehicles were seen by witnesses near the headquarters of "Hezbollah Brigades", which fought among the Shiite factions in the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) during the war against ISIS.
A security source told Asharq Al-Awsat that clashes erupted after a police patrol tried to stop a civilian car in the Palestine Street in Baghdad carrying armed members. Later on, a five-vehicle convoy of Hezbollah arrived and clashed with the police forces before fleeing the scene.
The source, who asked not to be named, indicated that government forces demanded handing over the members that attacked the security control and killed one of its elements, which the brigades initially refused to do.
He pointed out that "the armed faction required the presence of PMF representative during the extradition of the element accused of killing the policeman, but government forces required the member be handed to the police station in the new neighborhood of Baghdad, where the incident occurred.”
Despite assertions made by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi about ending proliferation of illegitimate arms, the problem of illegal armed groups resurfaced with the recent incident.
The Iraqi Shiite group Hezbollah and other pro-regime forces is fighting in Syria, and on Sunday, Israel attacked their site during which several of its members were killed.
Hezbollah faction, along with other pro-Iranian factions, are part of PMF which was formed in 2014 at the request of the highest Shiite authority in Iraq.
It was noteworthy that a statement issued by the Ministry of the Interior, on Wednesday, did not mention Hezbollah Brigades but rather reported that two Iraqi policemen were wounded in a shootout with a PMF member in Baghdad on Wednesday.
The shooting started when a police patrol tried to arrest the driver of a stolen car which belonged to the PMF, the ministry added in a statement. Police later arrested the shooter with the help of reinforcements.
It pointed out that, along with the car and the weapon used in the incident, the defendant was placed in a police station in Baghdad in preparation for taking legal action against him.
