On Saturday January 4 in Baghdad, the national funeral of Iranian general Ghassem Soleimani and his lieutenant in Iraq, Abu Mahdi Al-Mohandes, offered Shiite militias close to Iran who dominate the Popular Mobilization (MP) the opportunity to re-mobilize their base, against a backdrop of anti-Americanism, and to demonstrate their control over the state.
These armed factions have increased their military might, as well as their political and economic influence within institutions in the wake of the war against the Islamic State (IS) organization. They are now the spearhead of Iranian politics in the country, all the more powerful as Washington's influence wanes.
- War Against IS Promotes Militia Expansion
In June 2014, the fall of Mosul to ISIS created a shock wave in Iraq. Undermined by corruption, the army collapsed in a few days and the jihadists advance towards Baghdad. To defend the capital and the holy places at the call of Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, 170,000 men swell the ranks of already existing Shiite militias, hardened by their fight against the American occupation after 2003.
They have never been dismantled. Some of their members were co-opted into the security forces, like the Badr organization, which had accepted a dissolution in 2004 to integrate the interior ministry. But Badr kept a group of fighters out of the regular forces and managed to retain the loyalty of the men who joined the interior ministry. These Shiite militias will form the hard core of the new Popular Mobilization units.
These groups are armed by Iran. Tehran also sends them military advisers under the leadership of General Soleimani, who regularly visits them on the battlefield. Their numbers have exploded: from 4,000 men in 2010 to more than 60,000 in 2014, not to mention the Badr organization, which has 20,000 men, according to Michael Knights of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Alongside them are also created units affiliated to the Shiite religious leadership of Nadjaf, independent of Iran, and others made up of Sunni, Yazidi and Christian fighters with local roots.
With its fifty or so armed factions, the MP has become an essential, even front-line, support force in certain battles. It paid a heavy price: 9,000 fighters died and 23,000 injured between 2014 and 2017, according to an MP spokesman, Ahmed Al-Asadi. Its international image, however, is tainted with accusations of atrocities against local populations. Some of its leaders, including Qaïs Al-Khazali, of the League of Virtuous (Asaïb Ahl Al-Haq), were therefore placed in 2019 on the Magnitsky sanctions list of the United States Treasury.
