(MENAFN) Baghdad is planning to buy the Russian S-400 ground-to-air missile system from Moscow, according to the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan reports.

A member of the Iraqi Parliament's Committee on Security and Defense said that Hashd al-Shaabi forces, deployed in most of the headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), were fighting alongside Syrian forces.

The Iraqi prime minister has selected a team of advisers from the Iraqi Ministry of Defense and National Security to negotiate with Russia for the purchase of the S-400 missile defense system. The file was submitted to the Iraq-Syria-Iran-Russia Quadripartite Security Coordination Chamber.

Some American diplomats in Baghdad are asking questions about the reasons for such a request for purchase that they consider unnecessary since there is no air threat to Iraq. Their concerns also relate to Israel's possible attacks on Hashd al-Shaabi positions.

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