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Iraqi resistance group vows to stage airport sit-ins over Iran aerial blockade

Press TV – September 26, 2026

An Iraqi anti-terror resistance group has denounced the Baghdad government’s decision to halt Iranian airline operations following US sanctions on Iran’s aviation sector, vowing to stage sit-ins at Iraqi airports nationwide unless normal air traffic between the two Muslim neighboring countries resumes.

“We will not wait long,” Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba Secretary-General Akram al-Kaabi said in a statement on Friday.

He urged Iraqi political forces to “break free from American dominance.”

The restrictions, Kaabi said, were preventing millions of people from visiting religious sites and harming Iraq’s economy.

On Thursday, the Kata’ib Hezbollah resistance group called upon all walks of Iraqi society to break “the US siege on Iran.”

The faction urged Iraqi citizens to “circumvent the embargo through all available means” in demonstration of solidarity with Iran, including the purchase of Iranian commodities, the facilitation of commercial relations with Iran, and the abstention from any undertakings that would exacerbate Iranians’ hardship.

The group also asked Shia religious authorities to issue a decree (fatwa) on whether it is religiously permissible “to help the enemy, in any form, besiege and starve the Iranian people.”

Commercial aviation services between Iraq and Iran were suspended after ground-handling companies stopped providing services on these routes over concerns about potential US sanctions.

The move prompted airlines to suspend their flights.

Najaf International Airport, the last Iraqi airport still operating flights to Iran, suspended the services at 2 a.m. local time on Friday until further notice, according to an official directive.

Erbil International Airport and Sulaymaniyah’s International Airport took similar measures. Kirkuk International Airport also said it had no flights to Iran.

The disruption followed US measures targeting Iran’s aviation sector. On September 8, the US Treasury sanctioned 27 Iranian airlines and claimed that airports, fuel suppliers, ground-handling firms and other service providers dealing with sanctioned carriers could face secondary sanctions.

Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Sayyed Mojtaba Khamenei, on Friday warned against recent regional measures that had disrupted Iranian passenger flights, saying: “Flights in the region are either free for everyone, or for no one.”

He added that cooperation with the US in implementing hostile policies would remain in the memory of the Iranian people, stressing that if Iran cannot fly or receive airport services, “no country in the region will have this possibility either.”

September 26, 2026 - Posted by | Wars for Israel | , ,

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