Iraq’s pro-Iranian militias face an uncertain future after the December fall of the Bashar al Assad regime in Syria and amid pressure from Iraqi authorities for armed groups to be disbanded or incorporated further into Iraq’s security apparatus under state control.
The militias, collectively known as Hashd al Shaabi, or the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), included several dozen brigades at the height of Iraq’s battle against the Islamic State (IS) in 2017. As the war on IS wound down, these groups partially integrated into Iraq’s sprawling security apparatus, including receiving government salaries. However, some of the most powerful militias continued to carry out independent operations.
The militias are now under pressure from various directions in Iraq. For example, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein indicated in mid-January that the pro-Iranian militias should lay down their arms. However, Akram al Kaabi, the secretary general of Harakat Hezbollah al Nujaba, one of the militias, has rejected efforts to disarm his group and other members of what the militias call the “resistance (muqawama).” Kaabi’s comments were part of a January 24 report in Lebanon’s pro-Hezbollah Al Akhbar media.
Al Mada, a left-leaning newspaper in Iraq, has characterized Kaabi’s comments as potentially threatening US troops at the Al Assad base in Iraq. In 2019, the pro-Iranian militias began to increase rocket and drone attacks against US forces in Iraq and Syria. The dueling statements by militia and government leaders illustrate that Iraq is once again at an impasse regarding its powerful militias. Nevertheless, Baghdad’s calculations may have changed due to recent events in Syria.
As the Assad regime began to implode in early December, the Iraqi government sent forces to the Syrian border. The border between Iraq and Syria re-opened in 2019 when ISIS was defeated and had been a conduit for Iraq’s pro-Iranian militias entering Syria over the last several years. Among the militias that played a role on the Syrian side of the border was Kataib Hezbollah. The group has also been at the forefront of threats against US forces in Iraq and targeted American troops in Jordan in January 2024, killing three service members. With the Assad regime’s collapse, Iraq faced the prospect of militia members returning to the country, as well as Assad regime loyalists fleeing to Iraq. At least 2,000 Syrian soldiers crossed into Iraq and were eventually sent back to Syria in the third week of December.
As the militias lost their ability to operate in Syria, they also halted more than a year of attacks on Israel. Under the banner of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, several militias had been involved in repeated drone attacks on the Jewish state. On January 15, Nujaba’s Kaabi put out a statement saying the militias would suspend these attacks, a development that came in the context of the Gaza ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. However, the militias ending their role in Syria and attacks on Israel also ended some justifications for them to keep weapons outside of Iraqi state control.
The shifting ground underneath the militias has led to an avalanche of speculation in Iraq about these groups’ future. Iran seems nonplussed about this development, and the pro-regime Tehran Times claimed in early January that the PMU faces a “smear” campaign in Iraq. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei told Iraqi Prime Minister Shia al Sudani that the “Hashd al Shaabi is a crucial component of power in Iraq, and more efforts should be made to preserve it and to strengthen it even further.”
On January 14, as Sudani was visiting the United Kingdom, Al Mada reported that elements within the PMU had rejected integration into the Ministry of Defense or some other part of the state. At the same time, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hussein said that the presence of weapons in Iraq outside the control of the state was unacceptable. Two days later, an Al Mada report noted that Hussein had said that the issue of the PMU is an internal Iraqi matter, suggesting that Iran will not decide whether the militias remain outside state control. On January 19, Iraq’s Al Sumaria media included commentary about whether the PMU would be “dissolved,” illustrating how far the debate has progressed in Iraq.
On January 18, Russia’s RT Arabic claimed that three militias within the PMU, Kataib Hezbollah, Al Nujaba, and Ansar Allah al Awfiya, rejected calls to hand over their weapons. The UAE-based Erem News also reported that Kataib Hezbollah and Al Nujaba rejected disarmament. Ansar Allah al Awfiya, which makes up the 19th Brigade of the PMU, confirmed it refuses to disarm in a statement released on January 27.
In particular, Kataib Hezbollah has been at the vanguard of attacks on US forces in the past and is very close to the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). For instance, when Iranian IRGC-Quds Force head Qasem Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike in January 2020, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the head of Kataib Hezbollah and the deputy commander of Iraq’s PMF, was also killed.
