Days before his assassination by gunmen in front of his house in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, the expert on militant groups, Hisham al-Hashemi, revealed that he had been threatened because of his insistence on expressing his opinion.
Unidentified gunmen assassinated today, al-Hashemi, in front of his house in the Zayouna area, east of Baghdad, according to security sources, who indicated that the victim had been “shot directly in the head and chest area”.
Hashemi is an expert on militant groups and has studies and books on terrorist organizations, as well as his anti-corruption stances in Iraq and the chaos caused by pro-Iranian militias.
An Iraqi journalist told Al-Hurra, asking not to be identified, that al-Hashemi told him in a telephone conversation less than two weeks before his assassination, that he had received periodic death threats.
The journalist explained that the security officer of the Hezbollah Brigades militia, Abu Ali al-Askari, has been threatening him, and he literally told him in the last threatening phone message, “I will kill you in your house.”
The identity of Abu Ali al-Askari is not yet known, but the Iraqi media treats his Twitter account as a representative of the Hezbollah militia in Iraq.
After the military threat to Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kazimi against the arrest of Hezbollah operatives, analyst Hisham al-Hashemi spoke to Al-Hurra.
Al-Hashemi said then that “the military, legal and financial ability is available to Al-Kazemi if he wants, but he does not have enough political will to end the rebellion and challenge the factions.”
Immediately after the news of the arrest process was leaked, hundreds of members of the Hezbollah Brigades militia deployed in the streets of Baghdad and wandered with their light and medium weapons the neighborhoods near the Green Zone.
The Iraqi militias are responsible for the assassination of a number of Iraqi activists and journalists, including the journalist Ahmed Abdul Samad and the activist Fahim Al-Taie.
Abdel-Samad was also threatened, as was the case of al-Hashemi days before his assassination last January.
And electronic accounts launched a campaign after the assassination of Al-Hashemi under the tag “I handed the hand of the brigades”, which indicates the possibility of her involvement in the assassination of the Iraqi analyst.
