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Barack Obama welcomed leader of US embassy attack to the White House: Iran's 'point man' in Baghdad Hadi al-Amiri was hosted in the Oval Office in 2011 – eight years before he orchestrated siege in Iraq

The leader of an Iran-backed US embassy siege in Baghdad was welcomed to the White House by Barack Obama eight years ago before becoming Tehran's 'point man' in Iraq.

Hadi al-Amiri was Iraq's minister of transport under then-Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and stood in the Oval Office as part of Maliki's delegation on a visit to the White House in December 2011.

On Tuesday, al-Amiri was among those leading the charge against the US embassy in Baghdad when it was stormed and set alight by pro-Iran militants. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo shared a photograph of Amiri amid the rioters, condemning him as an 'Iranian proxy,' and calling those shoulder-to-shoulder with him 'terrorists.'

The head of a leading pro-Iran Shia faction, Amiri exerts great power within Iraq's state-sanctioned Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and was highlighted by Pompeo among three other men as the ringleaders of the siege.

The ease with which Amiri and these other commanders breezed through the heavily fortified 'Green Zone' has alarmed US officials, who have noted their militia's increased presence around diplomatic buildings in recent weeks.

A former guerrilla fighter who fought for Tehran in the Iran-Iraq War, Amiri has been accused of terrorism against the US, of helping Iran to ship arms to Bashar al-Assad in Syria and has been pictured bowing before the Islamic Republic's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The transport minister from 2010 until 2014, Amiri's guerrilla past fighting on Tehran's side during the vicious Iran-Iraq War remained clear even in the seemingly innocuous government position.

He was allegedly acting on the orders of the fearsome IRGC Major General Qassem Suleimani by allowing Iranian jets to fly weapons to the Syrian regime during Bashar al-Assad's brutal crackdown on his own people.

Amiri denied this, but told The New Yorker five years ago: 'I love Qassem Suleimani! … He is my dearest friend.'

General James Mattis told the magazine that without allies like Amiri in the Iraqi government, Assad's government would have collapsed in the early years of the Syrian Civil War.

Amiri has since re-taken his role at the helm of the Badr Corps, which was previously the military wing of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and which is made up of thousands of pro-Iranian former officers and soldiers who fled Saddam Hussein's reign.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7844623/Barack-Obama-welcomed-leader-embassy-attack-White-House.html