Iraq moves to revoke Saudi broadcaster’s license amid anger over report on Iran-backed terrorists

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s commission governing media announces that it will take steps to revoke the license of a Saudi television station to operate in the country.

That came hours after dozens of supporters of Iraqi militias stormed and looted the office of the broadcaster, MBC, in Baghdad in protest over a report that described a number of Iranian-linked militant figures — including a prominent Iraqi militia leader — as “terrorists.”

The report on terrorists who had been killed this century mentioned former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden alongside a roster of Iran-backed figures.

They included Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a veteran Iraqi militant who was the deputy commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces, an umbrella group of mostly Shiite paramilitaries and founder of the Kataeb Hezbollah, or Hezbollah Brigades.

Iraq’s Media and Communications Commission says in a statement that MBC had violated the country’s broadcasting regulations through “attacks on the martyrs, leaders of victory and heroic resistance leaders who are fighting the battle of honor against the usurping Zionist entity,” referring to Israel, and that it will order its executive office to cancel the station’s work license.

The station had already closed its doors following the attack.