 The assassination of an Iraqi militia leader in a drone attack has thrown light on the implications and the repercussions of this of Israel's war on Gaza in that country. What is happening in Iraq? Elections are due in the United Kingdom this year and both the conservative and Labour parties are making all kinds of announcements although there is widespread dissatisfaction against both. What are the prospects of both these parties? This is the Daily Debrief. These are your stories for the day and before we go any further please hit that subscribe button on YouTube. Since October 7th Iraq has seen a number of attacks on US bases by militia groups which are in solidarity with the people of Palestine. The US has responded severely with attacks as well. Recently a drone attack in Baghdad killed the leader of a popular militia and wounded others leading to outrage in the country as the United States is blamed. The US continues to maintain around 2,500 troops in Iraq despite opposition by all key political forces and demands that they be withdrawn. We go to Abdul to understand the situation in the country. Abdul thank you so much for joining us. So there have been continuous actions happening in Iraq actually since October 7th both from the side of various resistance forces various militias and from the side of the United States and Israel. So could you maybe take us through what has been the latest event probably one of the more severe attacks that has taken place and we can talk about the context after. Well on Thursday afternoon there was a drone attack in eastern Baghdad where the popular mobilization forces the hostile Sabi the semi official militia group in Iraq had its headquarters and in that drone attack at least four hostile hostile Sabi you can say soldiers members were killed including one of the top commanders Mustak al-Shabi or Abu Taqwa as he was popularly known. So there were four people killed and six others were injured and of course that has led to a large scale popular resistance. In fact there was a huge gathering when his funeral procession was held on Thursday evening and it has led to strong reactions coming from all government officials in Iraq including the prime minister Shial Sudani who basically said that this attack is basically a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and this basically also means Iraqi forces commander-in-chief said that this is a violation of the agreements which the Iraq had assigned with the US when the US forces deployment in the country the nature of it was changed from combat to training and assistance mission. So all of these reactions strong reactions have come following the killing of Abu Taqwa and this basically reminds the killing of IRGC commander in 2020 Qasim Soleimani and Abu Mahendi Al-Mudan Mohandas again PMF commander at the time. So this is the latest which has happened as you rightly point in the events which basically or you can say attacks and counter attacks which started post October 7 following the Israeli offensive Israeli war in Gaza. Yeah right Abu Qudu maybe also take us to the general political situation in Iraq what has sort of you know what have the response has been what has been the position of the Iraqi government other sections as far as Israel's brutal offensive is concerned. Well both people in Iraq and the Iraqi government has strongly you can say stood have taken stand against the war in Gaza of course there had been mobilization since October 7 where sometimes millions of people have participated denouncing Israeli occupation the genocide Palestinians in Gaza and Iraqi government has continued to basically demand ceasefire all in fact it has been part of the Arab initiative Arab Islamic initiative which basically led to delegation moving towards different parts of the world demanding mobilizing you can say for ceasefire in Gaza and also mobilization for mobilizing for the permanent solution to the conflict or the you can say end of occupation of Palestine. So that has been the official response as far as the militias are concerned the militias have been taken have been basically declared you can say a war as a part of the axis of resistance Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen and other militias in different parts of the region this has al-Sabi the popular mobilization forces in Iraq have basically taken a stand against the war in Palestine and they have basically targeted particularly the US bases in different parts of the region as per the records at least the US bases in Iraq and Syria have been attacked at least 118 times since October 7. Of course they have declared that since US is the basic enabler of the Israeli genocide in Gaza by providing weapons billions of dollars of weapons the ammunition which is used by Israel to bomb Palestinians in Gaza and diplomatic support basically using veto repeatedly in the United Nations Security Council to basically prevent any kind of attempts to kind of pass a resolution demanding immediate ceasefire in Gaza. So since US has been playing an active role in the war in Gaza therefore it is a party and therefore targeting its bases all over the region becomes legitimate and with that position PMF has been carrying out carrying out attack against the US bases and this also basically is clubbed with their long-term opposition to any foreign military presence in the country and that is precisely what Sudanese reaction the Iraqi Prime Minister reaction was that on Friday while addressing a popular gathering he basically claimed that his government has initiated a process through which the US forces or all the international forces the international coalition force as it is called officially would be withdrawn with a timeline you can say formal timeline. So this has been the reaction so Iraqi government and Iraqi people have opposed the war against Palestinians in Gaza and they continue to do so. Abdel thank you so much for that update thousands of junior doctors in the UK are continuing the six-day strike but this was not really on the agenda of Labour party leader and opposition leader of course K Shtarmer who made his new year speech from Bristol on January 4th in the speech Shtarmer called for project hope that sets the tone for Labour's speech as elections are expected to be held later this year but lacking any clear policy blueprints or promises working class groups are expressed disappointment. Meanwhile Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has brushed aside talks of an early election even as he is on campaign mode after back-to-back defeats in bipolar in bipolar last year we go to Anish to understand the situation. Anish we talked on the show before about the British junior doctors strike the reasons but today we're talking about the larger political situation how the ruling class the ruling elite is responding to many of these issues. Let's first take the case of the Labour party leader K Shtarmer favored by many to win in the upcoming elections and he's of course announcing a lot of proposals announcing a lot of visions etc etc so but what is this vision of K Shtarmer what really is he talking about? Let's begin with the fact that there are no what we see from this whatever he calls project hope which he claims is intended to bring out the poorer sections of Britain out of you know the kind of hopelessness that the Tory administration had given under different prime ministers obviously in the last about one and a half decade but the issue is that he doesn't give any concrete promises as well and that is the biggest concern right now because obviously K Shtarmer is somebody who is leading not because he is particularly remarkable but because he is because the Tory government right now are pretty much one of you know are doing one of the worst when it comes to managing an economy that shouldn't have been this worse off they have led the cost of living spiral to a point where you know the United Kingdom is one of the worst off right now in the western world when it comes to inflation when it comes to the cost of living and so on and so forth and it really is affecting the bottom line with poverty actually nearly doubling over the past few years and this is something that has not been addressed on top of that we are seeing the government not investing in actually ramping up the healthcare sector or for that matter industries and definitely all the you know all the promises that Brexit had offered didn't come to fruition because you know the Tory plan for Brexit was essentially just to keep migrants away and has nothing to do with economic revival and the thing is Tide Shtarmer talks about emissions talks about bringing emissions to zero by 2030 but he has he's no longer talking about the 28 billion pound annual fund that the Labour Party had promised last year if they came to power and it was one of the talking points in their convention but it is no longer part of his speech he doesn't talk about he in fact he actually talks about you know prioritizing keeping the balance of the budget in rather than actually bringing in more or finding more ways to raise revenues he has not talked about you know cutting down taxes on the middle and lower income groups he is not talking about how to fund or even about funding or allowing for greater investments in the healthcare sector he is giving promises but he is now distancing himself from the kind of promises very concrete promises that was pretty much a result of you know a left-wing labour mobilization trade union mobilization and that is being roundly called up right now by people within the labour itself who are talking that change cannot be something that can be just you know given that can be just said it has it requires concrete policy measures that the labour party really needs to take up but stamina is right now not intent to actually taking up many of these issues. Rananish now I'm going to the other end of the spectrum the conservatives seem to be in disarray they've had multiple prime ministers none of them really doing the trick Rishi Sunak doesn't seem to have worked either. Yeah Rishi Sunak is probably one of the worst performers if you you know discounted the previous one but nevertheless he is you know one of the least popular prime ministers that Britain has seen in decades right now and that has primarily to do with the fact that Sunak has been part of previous administration and was at the forefront of many of its failures and those failures are coming back to bite him right now as the prime minister he hasn't been able to revive or regain any kind of confidence and we have seen over the past year how by elections after by elections they have just lost seats seats that they held for you know a decade or more than a decade sometimes you know they never see that they never lost since the 70s even and it's in all of these cases even though the turnout was slow and you cannot really you know use that as the gauge of what the national vote would be but it clearly shows that the that the conservatives have lost the plot right now and you know the attempt to bring back you know previous leaders of the party that can actually in the hopes that that can actually revive any kind of confidence among at least its conservative voters clearly shows that it is at you know it's quite desperate they have been campaigning for about the past two months right now there are they have been on campaign mode essentially speaking after the last by election route but it hasn't really gained any kind of confidence and in that sense if you look at it there has been significant backlash from the working class movement that the conservatives have not been able to you know stamp out no matter how much they tried no matter how much they've tried to break strikes including the current junior doctor strike where the labor is trying to use employers to get them to you know cut strikes shot but that is not working either and the other hand we also do not have the labor coming out very force rightly when it comes to supporting these strikers and supporting these work of working class mobilization because obviously he sees himself as the person who can somehow manage you know the the capitalist class interest with whatever little working class facade that the labor party right now has and its leadership at least and that is really creating a situation where the voters are essentially choosing between you know the really bad from the not so bad and it's and it clearly shows even in the polls like Stammer is not one of the most popular leaders either or when it comes to people who have been in the opposition in fact he is doing worse than even the previous prime minister who were in the opposition right before they became the prime minister and so this clearly shows that there is a significant lack or you know there is a significant loss and confidence in the traditional set of politics of you know the Tories of the Tory likes and that is really not giving out any kind of results that really needs to happen and you know you can actually we have to wait and see later this year how it affects turnout how it affects results but definitely the voters are really not given a great deal of options when it comes to choosing a leadership that can actually move the country to the change that they will watch. Thank you so much Anish for that. That's all we have in today's episode we'll be back next week with a fresh episode in the meanwhile visit our website peoplesdispatch.org follow us on all the social media platforms and if you're watching this on youtube please hit the subscribe button.