Seth J. Frantzman
Jerusalem Post, Apr. 7, 2025
“This is a state within a state of more than 100,000 men who are veterans of the war on ISIS.”
A report from Reuters on April 7 indicates that the Iranian-backed militias in Iraq could disarm due to their fear of the Trump administration. This is a significant development. However, it is crucial to examine this issue more closely to fully understand it.
The Iranian-backed militias in Iraq are called the Hashd al-Shaabi or Popular Mobilization Forces. These consist of up to thirty different militias, many of them linked to Iran. Some of the militias have deep roots in Iraq and are very close to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. For instance, the Badr Organization, which has a number of militias within the PMF, was once a proxy force of the Iranians back in the 1980s. Kataib Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy as well. These represent Iran’s attempt to replicate what it did with Hezbollah in Lebanon, except doing the same thing in Iraq.
In the 1980s, Iraq was run by the Saddam regime, so the groups that became militias lived in exile. Men like Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who came to lead Kataib Hezbollah, were known terrorists working for the Iranians in the 1980s. These were young Shi’ite men at the time, from Iraq, and they lived in exile in places like Iran, working to promote Tehran’s “revolution.” Some of them went to Lebanon and became close with Hezbollah.
When the Saddam regime fell in 2003, these nascent militia leaders returned to Iraq. Soon, they found themselves close to the center of power in Baghdad. Having come in from the cold, they could now lead the new Iraq. In the period of the US occupation, these militias often were involved in sectarian killing, such as kidnapping Sunni Arabs and murdering them. …SOURCE