Top activist ambushed, slain in Iraq

A LEADING Iraqi anti-government activist was killed early yesterday, security sources and activists said, sending supporters of a protest movement on to the streets to demand an end to bloodshed.

Ihab al-Wazni, a co-ordinator of protests in the Shia shrine city of Karbala, was a vocal opponent of corruption, the stranglehold of Tehran-linked armed groups and Iran’s influence in Iraq.

He was shot overnight outside his home by men on motorbikes, in an ambush caught on surveillance cameras. His death was confirmed by security forces and activists.

Wazni narrowly escaped death in December 2019, when men on motorbikes used silenced weapons to kill fellow activist Fahem al-Tai as he was dropping him off at home in Karbala, where pro-Tehran armed groups are legion.

Both were key figures in a national protest movement that erupted against government corruption and incompetence in Iraq in October 2019.

Around 600 people were killed as a result of their association with that movement – many on the streets during rallies, others targeted on their doorsteps away from the rallies.

Protests broke out in Karbala, Nassiriya and Diwaniya in southern Iraq in reaction to Wazni’s killing, as people called for an end to the bloodshed and to rampant corruption.

In a video recording in the morgue where his body was initially held, a fellow activist made it clear who he and colleagues blamed for the killing.

“It is the Iranian militias who killed Ihab,” said the unnamed activist. “They are going to kill all of us!

They threaten us and the government remains silent.”

Police in Karbala said they “will spare no effort” to find “the terrorists” behind Wazni’s killing.

Politicians, including Shia leader Ammar al-Haki, deplored the killing and called for justice.

Around 30 activists have died in targeted killings and dozens of others abducted, some detained briefly, since October 2019. Such targeted killings are normally carried out in the dead of night by men on motorbikes, and nobody claims responsibility.

Authorities have consistently failed to identify the perpetrators of these political killings.