An Iraqi paramilitary commander declared a state of maximum alert and called on his fighters, including those on leave, to immediately join their military units in Nineveh, a short message was sent to the fighters and received by The New Region on Wednesday, read.

Hamid al-Yasiri, commander of the Ansar al-Marja'iyya Brigade, one of the prominent brigades of the Popular Mobilization Authority (PMA) deployed in Nineveh Province, northern Iraq, asked his fighters to immediately head to their military headquarters on Nineveh Jazira.

In his brief message Yasiri said that "the Jazira is in danger."

"If you receive the message, leave everything and ride the wind like a horse, and fill Nineveh Jazira with hordes that love death," Yasiri's message reads.

Yasiri asked his fighters to wait for the "special call" that will reach them later without revealing further details.

However security sources in  Hadhar where Ansar al-Marja'iyya Brigade fighters are deployed told The New Region that the alert announced by Yasiri was in response to a 44-second long video posted on social media showing a group of militants in a desert area challenging Yasiri to find them.

Two PMA commanders contacted by The New Region downplayed Yasiri’s appeal, saying the situation in Nineveh is currently calm and that Yasiri’s call was intended to “show off.” 

The PMA command last week reinforced its troops deployed in western Nineveh and along the Iraqi-Syrian border after the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) released hundreds of detainees from prisons in Hasakah and Qamishli, eastern Syria, in anticipation of their infiltration into Iraqi territory.

The recent security escalation in the region following the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political bureau in Tehran late last month, and the expected Iranian response against Israel, in addition to a number of security breaches targeting the PMA’s troops and the Iraqi army in the areas of Hadhar, southwest of Mosul, and Khan Bani Saad, southeast of Diyala, prompted the Iraqi Joint Military Operations Command to raise the level of caution and vigilance in the northern and western operational sectors.

“Nothing unusual has happened in the aforementioned operational sectors so far, but some signs indicate the return of activity of some ISIS sleeper cells in these areas, in addition to the fear of the infiltration of terrorists released by the SDF, which prompted us to exercise caution,” a military commander serving in the Operations Command in Baghdad told The New Region.

“Other than this, there is no major security incident that warrants the mobilization in the manner adopted by Yasiri.”