Shia militias in Iraq

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Part of Iran’s strategy in Iraq has been to empower Shia political parties, which has involved the mobilisation of Shia militias in Iraq. These militias are now playing an essential role in ejecting the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, from Iraq. There remain stiff challenges associated with the militias’ post-ISIS integration into the regular Iraqi security forces and the potential for other more destabilising Iranian missions. Iran–Iraq relations after 2003 After the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iraq became a focus of confrontation between Tehran and Washington. The US intervention in a Shia-majority country bordering Iran directly challenged Tehran’s foreign policy, which is based substantially on anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism. To Iran the intervention also posed risks of US military encirclement. Yet although Tehran officially opposed the intervention, its response was pragmatic: it used the US invasion to consolidate a regional position that had been strengthened by the United States’ removal of Saddam Hussein’s minority Sunni regime, a major regional rival and a source of strategic vulnerability since the 1980–88 Iran–Iraq War. Tehran became increasingly indispensable to Iraq’s post-Saddam Shia-dominated government. Tehran now enjoys a very strong voice in Iraqi politics in general, and in the building of a new Iraqi state in particular. The state-building task, of course, remains fraught and formidable. The George W. Bush administration’s Iraqi democratisation effort failed either to establish robust democracy in Iraq or to spread democracy through the region. Instead, Middle Eastern populations tended to see US occupation as heavy-handed and quasi-imperialistic, and anti-Americanism rose steeply in the region. Iraq has faced 14 years of insecurity, and the anarchical situation in many of its provinces has reinforced Iran’s dominant view that democracy there means disorder. Bolstering this view was the spillover of insecurity and instability from Iraq to bordering Iranian provinces. At the same time, the United States’ hobbling military and diplomatic immersion in Iraq opened new opportunities for Iran to sidestep sanctions by forging partnerships with non- ISSN: 1356-7888 Western powers, such as Russia and China, in addition to Iraq. Owing to the lingering trauma of Iraq’s invasion of Iran in 1980 and the horrific eight subsequent years of war, one of Iran’s imperatives is to anticipate and limit the re-emergence of an Iraqi Sunni threat. To do so, Tehran aims to keep Iraq in an economically and politically dependent relationship and to ensure that the Shia majority remains politically dominant. Indeed, close ties between the new Iraqi political elite and Iran have encouraged dependence. Many Iraqi political figures spent years in exile in Iran and built up strong personal networks of political contacts. The religious component is also significant, as there are transnational networks of Shia clerics and annual visits by Iranian pilgrims to Najaf, the main Shia holy city in Iraq. The relationship is not unidirectional. Iraqi Shia clerics do not challenge the official religious doctrine of the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and his successor, current Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei. But the Najaf theological school and Iraq-based Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani command great respect in Iran. Sistani is among the most popular marja – sources of religious authority – for Iranian Shi’ites. The Popular Mobilisation Units The Hashd al-Shaabi or Popular Mobilisation Units (PMU) arose in response to a fatwa by Sistani prompted by the fall of Mosul to ISIS in 2014. Sistani declared that ‘whoever of you sacrifices himself to defend his country and his family and their honour will be a martyr’. PMU fighters number between 60,000 and 100,000 and are contributing 35,000 of the 90,000 fighters involved in the Iraqi government’s current effort to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, from ISIS. In November 2016, the Iraqi government accorded them official status as part of Iraq’s security forces. Sunni Arab politicians characterised this development as evidence of Shia ‘dictatorship’ in Iraq that could increase extrajudicial killings and military brutality, weaken the Iraqi military establishment and deepen national sectarian divisions. In February, video footage emerged of Shia militiamen and Iraqi soldiers beating and executing civilians in east Mosul, and Amnesty International documented PMU atrocities in Fallujah in 2016. While the PMU consider themselves a religious movement of Iraqi national liberation, the Western media tend to describe them more calmly as an Iran-backed coalition of Shia militias. Officials and media of Gulf Sunni Arab countries regard them as an Iran-backed terrorist organisation. None of these three characterisations is altogether accurate, mainly because the PMU are heterogeneous. About half of the PMU are pre-existing militias, and about half are new outfits mustered by Sistani or other Iraqi politicians. Iran funds, supports and operationally supervises four of the largest groups in the PMU: Kata’ib Hizbullah, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada and the Badr Organisation. The PMU also include the Peace Brigades, a group aligned behind firebrand Iraqi Shia cleric and politician Muqtada al-Sadr. Iraq’s holy shrines, controlled by Sistani, established three of the best-trained and equipped groups of the PMU: the Imam Ali Brigade, Ali al-Akhbar Brigade and Abbas Division. Their officers are nationalists aligned with the Iraqi government, and the Abbas Division was actually trained by Iraqi special forces. But Sistani’s religious authority gives him countervailing authority over these units, which, when he decides to exercise it, could have significant political consequences. Sistani’s disenchantment with former prime minister Nuri al-Maliki forced him from office. The PMU also now nominally include some Sunni tribal fighters and Christian militias. Some PMU groups also receive money and military support from Iran’s Quds Force, the covert expeditionary element of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Many Iranians see Quds Force commander General Qassem Suleimani as a protector of Iran against the influence of ISIS and encroachment from Iraq and Syria. In mainstream Iranian political discourse, Iranian involvement in regional conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Yemen is justified as the forward engagement of ISIS and al-Qaeda before they reach Iranian territory. ‘Shia jihadism’? In counterpoint to the multinational range of the Shia militias that Iran sponsors, Iranian propaganda emphasises the antiShia agenda of transnational terrorist groups such as ISIS and al-Qaeda to justify its depredations into the Middle East. This does not mean that the Iranian geopolitical assertiveness in the region constitutes jihad. Volume 23 Comment 9 March 2017 The reality is informed by more subtle and conflicted domestic politics. Since Hassan Rouhani became Iran’s president in 2013, the elected institutions for diplomatic reasons have cast Tehran’s participation in the regional conflict as a counterterrorism element of Iran’s national security policy that affords it common cause with Washington in the fight against ISIS. But the Supreme Leader and the IRGC for domestic and religious reasons have given priority to the promotion of the values of the Islamic Revolution and the defence of Shia communities in Muslim countries, resulting in an increasingly sectarian and expansive declaratory policy with respect to the use of Iranian-controlled PMU. Iraq maintains considerable operational influence over some of the PMU. The key player is Faleh al-Fayad, the Iraqi national security adviser, who coordinates with PMU commanders. While the authority he enjoys is not tight, neither is it negligible. For instance, Iraqi and Iraqi Kurdistan planners were able to assign the PMU specific zones of responsibility for the assault on ISIS in Mosul. Fayad, like his Iranian counterparts, sees Iraq in a struggle against Sunni global jihad executed by groups like ISIS but supported by Sunni oil money from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. While he proclaims Iraq an ally of the United States, he acknowledges its strong relationship with Iran and sees all three countries as sharing an interest in repelling ISIS. In practice, if Fayad openly criticised Tehran, his office would risk losing influence over the four large PMU groups substantially supported and controlled by Tehran. PMU after ISIS How the PMU evolve after Mosul has been liberated and ISIS effectively marginalised in Iraq has major implications for the country. The salient possibilities are all problematic. If Sistani ends his fatwa and the Iraq-based units that coalesced on that basis demobilise, remaining Iran-based forces could continue to be Iranian proxies. There have been indications that such forces are interested in carrying forward Iran’s geopolitical designs beyond Iraq and into Syria. British and Iraqi intelligence believe that the Badr Organisation commander Hadi al-Amiri – who although Iraqi fought on Iran’s side in the Iran–Iraq War and is a close friend of Suleimani’s – pushed the Iraqi government to authorise it to encircle and capture Tal Afar in late October rather than allowing ISIS to escape. He was successful, and the force captured the airport and gained access to the road leading westward into Syria. (US Secretary of Defense James Mattis, when he was commander of US Central Command in 2013, believed Amiri had facilitated the shipment of weapons to Syria while serving as Iraqi minister of transportation.) Reportedly, Iraqi Shia militias have established a presence in Syria, and participated in the final assault on Aleppo in December. The PMU could also behave less extrovertly, anchoring a new and cohesive Iraqi army with close ties to the Shia communities, which respect them more than they do the existing Iraqi army. That, of course, could risk threatening Sunnis and motivating Sunni jihadist groups to rise yet again, repeating the dynamic that took hold after 2003 and in 2014. PMU-controlled areas might also turn into fiefdoms, and Iraq into a Somalia-like state factionalised by private armies. In another scenario, Iraqi government corruption and dysfunction could alienate Iraq’s clerical establishment, which might induce Sistani, to whom the PMU groups raised by the Shia shrines are ultimately answerable, to bless them as a separate and parallel force. In the worst case, they could simply become Iran’s military forces in a proxy war between Iran and the Sunni Gulf Arab states, with Iraq the battlefield. Outlook The pro-Shia sectarian bias of the Iraq security forces in 2014 inspired Iraqi Sunni resistance. This culminated in a re-energised al-Qaeda in Iraq, which ultimately became ISIS. With the anticipated expulsion of ISIS from Iraq, displaced Sunnis will often have to return to areas controlled by Shia militias. To break the cycle of sectarian www.iiss.org/stratcom Editor: Jonathan Stevenson Volume 23 Comment 9 March 2017 animosity and radicalisation, a much higher degree of institutional impartiality and professionalism in the Iraqi security forces than they have thus far possessed will be required. This, in turn, will require a reformed security sector. Focused postconflict US engagement would seem to be required. The United States’ training of Iraqi forces has been a frustrating experience overall. But intensified US training and supervision has made Iraq’s formerly Shia-dominated 10,000-strong CounterTerrorism Service – informally known as the ‘Golden Division’ but once disparaged as the ‘Dirty Division’ and Maliki’s ‘private army’ – into a more professional and inclusive organisation since the surge of ISIS three years ago. The Counter-Terrorism Service has performed impressively in urban combat in Fallujah and Ramadi as well as Mosul, earning it credibility within both the Shia and Sunni communities. Mattis considers the PMU a potential threat to regional stability and US National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster has acknowledged that their employment in Sunni areas is a matter of ‘grave concern’. Accordingly, the United States has provided air support only to operations led by the regular Iraqi army. But Washington has also recognised the need to co-opt and normalise the PMU in post-ISIS Iraq to the extent possible. Shortly after the Iraqi parliament passed the law making the PMU part of Iraq’s armed forces in November 2016, US and coalition special-operations forces began providing training and weapons to Iraqi fighters including Sunnis, Christians and Yazidis as well as Shi’ites, using police and intelligence databases to weed out those operating under commanders with ties to terrorist groups or Iran-backed PMU. Within the US military the initiative is controversial and considered risky, but if it produces positive results, it may merit expansion. For political reasons, however, no US trainand-equip programme could realistically extend to PMU groups directly controlled by Iran. Reining them in will continue to be a complex function of regional strategic relationships, including the bilateral one between the United States and Iran. 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