A member of Hashid Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation Forces) parachutes during a military parade in Basra, southeast of Baghdad, on Saturday.

AFP
Baghdad
Iraq, Russia, Iran and Syria have agreed to set up an intelligence committee in Baghdad, a spokesman said yesterday, a further sign of Moscow’s growing role in the region’s conflict.
Iraq welcomed the creation of the cell as a chance to help harmonise often competing efforts in the fight against the Islamic State (IS) militant group.
“It’s a committee co-ordinating between the four countries, with representatives of each country, in the field of military intelligence and aimed at sharing and analysing information,” Saad al-Hadithi, a spokesman for Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s office, said.
He said the cell would focus on “monitoring the movements of terrorists... and degrading their capacity”.
A statement from Iraq’s Joint Operations Command said the deal with Moscow comes amid “growing concern over the presence of thousands of Russian terrorists engaged in criminal acts with Daesh (IS)”.
Russia’s Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev earlier this month estimated that 1,800 Russian citizens are fighting for IS, while reports have suggested Moscow is deliberately letting militants take their battle away from its own borders.
Hadithi would not say whether the new cell had already begun its work. There was no comment on the issue from Damascus and Tehran.
A Russian “military-diplomatic source” quoted by Russian news agencies said the centre in Baghdad would be managed on a rotational basis, with Iraq taking the lead for the first three months.
“The main functions of this centre will be collection, processing and analysis of information regarding the situation in the Middle East in the context of fighting the Islamic State group, distributing this information to the relevant parties and quickly forwarding it to the general staffs of these countries,” the source was quoted as saying.
The move comes as Moscow boosts its military presence in neighbouring Syria, deploying more troops and warplanes to an air base along with new arms deliveries to President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, a long-standing ally.
The United States has a $500mn programme to train and equip vetted moderates recruited from among the rebels fighting Assad, but it has faced repeated setbacks.
Washington’s strategy in Iraq, built on an air campaign and the deployment of several thousand military trainers and advisers, has also come under increasing fire as failing to produce results.
Moscow has sold fighter jets and weaponry to Iraq but has taken the back seat as Iran and the US-led coalition—which also includes France and Britain—often competed to be Baghdad’s top partner in the war against IS.
Abadi’s spokesman said enhanced intelligence co-operation would positively affect operations against IS.
“Having a broader base of intelligence thanks to co-operation with these three countries as well as with the coalition will give our security forces more opportunities to achieve victory in the war against terrorism,” Hadithi said.