BAGHDAD — An overnight drone strike on the home of Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi drew widespread condemnation Sunday as the contours of a potentially fatal attack became clearer.
Iraq’s interior ministry said that Kadhimi’s residence had been targeted by three drones, two of which were shot down. According to photographs distributed by Iraqi state media, at least one projectile hit the prime minister’s home directly.
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The attack marked a major escalation in a campaign of drone and rocket strikes on targets in Iraq as armed groups use violence to raise the stakes of political decisions that threaten their interests. Censure followed swiftly. Iraqi President Barham Salih called the attack a “dangerous transgression.” The United Nations said it condemned it in “the strongest terms.”
Iraq’s military says prime minister targeted in drone strike.
Iraq’s military described the strike as a failed “assassination attempt.” It was not immediately clear whether the drone had been intended to land as closely to the residence as it did.
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Video footage from the prime minister’s compound showed that a vehicle in the parking lot had borne the brunt of the explosion.
The attack came as Iran-linked groups intensify pressure over an Oct. 10 election result that saw their political alliance suffer surprising setbacks. It won the largest share of the vote but its share of the country’s 329 parliamentary seats dropped by almost two-thirds.
The lion’s share of the seats went to the party of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and the populist leader’s recent moves have suggested that he may be preparing to agree to a government that marginalizes parliament’s main Iran-backed alliance, known as Fatah.
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On Friday, the alliance’s supporters clashed with security forces outside Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone complex, home to Kadhimi’s residence and the U.S. Embassy.
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Two people were killed when security forces opened fire on the protesters, who had rallied under a campaign which calls itself ‘Stop the Steal,’ in reference to the election.
At least 125 others were wounded, most of them riot police, after the gathered protesters hurled rocks that they had pulled out from the sidewalk.
Sunday’s drone strikes, which were heard throughout central Baghdad in the early hours of the morning, caused tensions to spike even further.
Kadhimi’s office said that he had been unharmed by the strike, although several members of his security detail were wounded. But in video footage of the prime minister, who addressed the nation shortly after the attack, the faint outline of a bandage appeared to be visible below his white shirt.
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Photographs from his residence showed that the drone had come close: doors and windows to the premier’s home had been blown in.
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No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Iraqi and western officials have blamed previous attacks of a similar nature on Iran-linked paramilitaries in Iraq.
These have targeted U.S.-linked installations and Iraqi intelligence headquarters, but never the office of a senior official. The Iran-linked Kataib Hezbollah militia group is also accused of attempting to intimidate Kadhimi, who came to office vowing to rein in the paramilitaries’ influence, by assassinating one of his confidantes, the scholar and researcher Hisham al-Hashemi, last year.
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A coalition representing many of the parties who lost out in the October 10 election, including representatives of the militias, condemned the attack but claimed it was the work of unknown forces trying to sow chaos.
In a video published by his office Sunday, Kadhimi was seem chairing a meeting of his security commanders about the overnight attack.
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“The cowardly terrorist attack that targeted the home of the prime minister last night with the aim of assassinating him, is a serious targeting of the Iraqi state by criminal armed groups,” his office said in a statement.
The violence leaves Iraq in a dangerous moment as politicians and armed groups scramble to work out their next steps.
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But experts said that it may also present an opportunity for de-escalation.
“This may be the high watermark of the violent aspect of this brinksmanship around the election,” said Patrick Osgood, a senior analyst at Control Risks who monitors Iraq.
“With the logic of violence that is increasingly dominating political activity in Iraq, there is also the potential now for a broad recognition now that this stuff has gone too far, and is unconscionable.”
Sadr, who has cast himself as a statesman in recent weeks, deploring the violence of his Iran-aligned rivals and holding public prayers in the wake of an alleged Islamic State attack, described the drone strikes as an attempt to destabilize the country.
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In the run-up to Iraq’s election, U.S. officials signalled that Sadr, a onetime foe whose Mahdi Army militia fought American troops after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, was seen as an acceptable bulwark to Iran-aligned factions.
“The terrorist act that targeted the supreme authority in the country is a clear and explicit targeting of Iraq, its people and its stability,” Sadr said in a statement Sunday.
In the months before last month’s parliamentary election, Sadr had also used the threat of a political boycott to delay the process, leaving Kadhimi’s government to fear that proceeding without his buy-in might also lead to street violence.
Politicians who have aligned themselves with the Stop the Steal campaign after losing seats in the election, including influential Shiite leader Ammar al-Hakeem and former U.S.-backed Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi, also condemned Sunday’s attack.
“The question for them now is what are they going to do,” Osgood, the senior analyst, said. “Are they going to bow out of this Stop the Steal campaign and accept their losses for the sake of the state, or are they not?”
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