Report: Iran-Backed Militias Enjoying Unprecedented Military Power in Iraq

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Title : Report: Iran-Backed Militias Enjoying Unprecedented Military Power in Iraq
Link : Report: Iran-Backed Militias Enjoying Unprecedented Military Power in Iraq

Baghdad-sanctioned Shiite militiamen allied with Iran, including fighters who want to push U.S. troops out, have gained control of many of the Sunni territories in Iraq they helped liberate from the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).

Their presence is fueling local resentment that could lead to an Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) revival, the Washington Post (WaPo) reported Wednesday.

An umbrella organization for predominantly Iranian-backed Shiite known as the Popular Mobilization Forces/Units and Hashd al-Shaabi is “enjoying unprecedented military and political power in Iraq” after it won nearly a third of the seats in parliament during the recent elections, the Post noted, adding:

With major combat [against Sunni ISIS] over, the militias — some with roots dating back to the Saddam Hussein era, others that emerged to fight U.S. occupation after 2003 and yet others that formed in 2014 to fight the Islamic State — are setting their sights on political and economic goals.

They are fanned out across Iraq’s Sunni heartland, including the provinces of Anbar, Salahuddin and Nineveh, home to Iraq’s most-populous Sunni city of Mosul. In Sunni towns, the militias have established political and recruitment offices and operate checkpoints along major roads (and even smaller interior pathways), levying taxes on truckers moving oil, household goods and food.

PMF fighters, estimated to number up to 150,000 in Iraq, helped the United States and Iraqi security forces annihilate the ISIS territorial caliphate in Iraq, earning the praise of high-ranking American military officials.

Although the Pentagon’s office of the inspector general (OIG) and independent assessments have deemed the Shitte organization a significant threat to U.S. troops, fighting the Shiite militiamen is not part of the American mission in Iraq, Breitbart News learned from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) late last year. The Pentagon has the legal authority to fight ISIS because it was once a wing of al-Qaeda; the active Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) enacted after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks permit military action against al-Qaeda, but not Iran. READ MORE