Iranian-Backed Militias Threaten U.S. Forces in Iraq by Seth J. Frantzman - Jerusalem Post
Members of Hashd al-Shaabi, the Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias in Iraq, can be seen warning US troops near Mosul against “provocations,” in a video posted over the weekend. US troops on patrol in eastern Mosul were confronted by gunmen who monitored their movements and blocked their movement by placing an armored jeep across a road.
Iran’s Press TV boasted on Saturday that “Hashd al-Shaabi stop US military patrol in Iraq’s Mosul.” The Hashd – also called the Popular Mobilization Units – are a group of militias that have grown in the last several years in response to the ISIS attack on Iraq in 2014. Some of the militias, such as Badr, have deep roots in Iraq, with leaders who fought alongside the Iranians during the Iran-Iraq war.
Others, such as Qais Khazali’s Asaib Ahl al-Haq, were once considered terrorist gangs that targeted US troops and Sunnis in Iraq, after the US invasion of 2003. Khazali was once held at Camp Cropper, a holding facility run by the US Army. In December 2017, he went to Lebanon, from where he threatened Israel. The PMU in Iraq increasingly play a similar role to Hezbollah in Lebanon, supporting armed militias and members in parliament. The Fatah Alliance, led by Badr’s Hadi al-Amiri, came in second in Iraq’s May 2018 elections.
US forces in Iraq, deployed as part of the coalition’s anti-ISIS war, have not worked with the PMU during the war. This has presented a complex challenge because, ostensibly, the US is allied with the PMU in the anti-ISIS effort, even as the US administration of Donald Trump has ended the Iran deal and sought to confront and sanction Tehran…