Middle East Eye .. This is how Sistani moves to break Iran's grip on the PMF

The British Middle East Eye website discussed the division within the PMF in Iraq, due to the separation of factions loyal to the Najaf reference, after efforts to wrest control from leaders backed by Iran failed.

Writer Suad al-Salhi said - in a report published by the website - that the attempt by the supreme authority in Iraq, Ali al-Sistani, to wrest control of the PMF from the Iranian-backed Iraqi factions, ended with giving the green light to resolve the alliance that existed between these factions, according to leaders and military officials.

This division began last week when four armed factions separated from the religious thresholds in Najaf separated themselves from the Popular Mobilization, namely the Imam Ali Brigades, the Ali Brigades, the Abbas Brigade Combat Team, and the Ansar al-Marjiyeh Brigade.

Important event
The writer reported that the withdrawal of these factions was an important event because the Hashd was established by then Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in June 2014 in response to a fatwa issued by Sistani calling on Iraqis to join the fight against IS after he invaded large parts of the north and northwest of the country.

Al-Sistani's fatwa was clear, as it stipulated that ISIS must be fought only under the leadership of the Iraqi security forces. But Maliki has stirred controversy by setting up the PMF instead, giving his leadership responsibility to National Security Adviser Faleh al-Fayyad, and appointing Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis (founder of most Iraqi armed factions loyal to Iran) as its vice-president.

On the surface, al-Maliki's move seemed tactically logical as Iran-backed factions - like the "Badr Organization" - became the main pillar of the PMF because they were very organized and well armed.

Instead of serving as a regular military force responsible for reporting to army chiefs as required by the PMF law, most factions were receiving orders from Iran's Quds Force commander, General Qassem Soleimani. The religious authorities in Najaf and Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi - who succeeded al-Maliki - have attempted to regain control of the PMF over the next four years, but concerns about the outbreak of a confrontation between the two sides have undermined these efforts.

According to the author, Najaf’s last attempt to take control of the PMF was six months ago, when it called for the replacement of most of the leaders and officials associated with Iran with independent leaders under the supervision of the Sistani administration. But the Iranian-backed leaders' refusal to abandon their positions and their insistence on maintaining the neighboring country’s control over the PMF has led to the negotiations reaching a dead end.

She noted that the number of registered fighters who have separated from the PMF does not yet exceed 12 thousand fighters, but the leaders and officials told the British site that it is expected that thousands of others will follow their example if the Prime Minister agrees to allow the movement of fighters between the factions. The PMF currently has about 150,000 fighters.

Al-Sistani's fatwa
By early 2014, ISIS had strengthened and began bold operations against Iraqi security forces. Seeking agreement on how best to secure Baghdad, Maliki - who had lost confidence in the ability of security forces to counter the Islamic State - held a meeting in Baghdad in March 2014 with his prominent Shiite factions.

The author indicated that by June 2014, ISIS had captured about a third of Iraqi territory. Sistani's fatwa - which was intended to counter the collapse of the military and prevent the Islamic State from taking over Baghdad - was the lifeline that Maliki held to legislate the activities of his faction allies through the creation of the Popular Mobilization Authority.

According to political analyst Abdel Wahid Touma, once the Popular Mobilization Authority was established, Maliki had good reasons to hand over the responsibility of its leadership to his Iranian-backed allies. Although factions such as the Hezbollah Brigades and the League of the Righteous were effective combat forces, they were few in number and functioned as elite units. This threatened to prevent the Iranians from assuming full control of the PMF, and unleashed the first spark of the conflict.

The author noted that Iran has started providing regular salaries to tens of thousands of volunteers and their weapons and equipment generously. On the other hand, the armed fighters who relied on Baghdad had to wait until June 2015 to be paid.

In July 2016, the religious authorities in Najaf revealed their concerns to officials in Baghdad and Tehran about the behavior of Iranian-backed forces, citing their involvement in human rights violations and seizure of resources in areas recovered from ISIS.

In March 2018, then Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi issued a decree ordering the restructuring of the PMF, but Iranian-backed factions had completely ignored the decision.

Repression of demonstrators
Tensions between the religious authorities in Najaf and Iran over the PMF reached a climax last October, when some PMF leaders were directly accused of carrying out a brutal crackdown targeting anti-government protesters, where hundreds were killed and thousands wounded.

Last November, pro-religious leaders in Najaf sent a proposal to Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi to reform the PMF and reduce Iran's control over its leadership.

According to officials and leaders familiar with the negotiations, the proposed reforms were based on three initial steps, firstly identifying the positions, directorates, and leaders that are the keys to controlling the PMF, and secondly, dismissing those who held these positions and replacing them with new leaders under the supervision of the religious authorities in Najaf, and thirdly, excluding all participating leaders In suppressing the demonstrators. But this proposal was not supported.

Chaos after the assassination
The writer referred to the assassination of Eng. Suleimani in early January in a US raid near Baghdad airport that caused chaos resulting in the launch of leaders supporting pro-Sistani, a new attempt to pressure Abdul-Mahdi to reform the crowd.

Shortly thereafter, Abdul-Mahdi met the leaders of the four factions in his Baghdad office with Faleh al-Fayyad. A attendee confirmed to Middle East Eye that Sheikh Abd al-Mahdi al-Karbalai and Sayyid Ahmad al-Safi, representatives of the High Religious Authority, joined the meeting over the phone.

It seems that the Iranian-backed factions sensed the seriousness of the recent Najaf efforts to control the PMF, rushing to name Abdul Aziz al-Muhammadawi (Abu Fadak) - a prominent leader in the Hezbollah Brigades - to succeed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

On the other hand, the leaders loyal to the Najaf authority rejected the appointment of Abu Fadak and threatened to withdraw from the commission if their demands were not taken seriously. To ease the tension and try to persuade the four factions not to withdraw, Abdul-Mahdi sent a military delegation to meet Al-Karbalai in an attempt to find a settlement that would satisfy both parties, but the latter refused to go into details.

After several negotiations, the talks in the Abdul Mahdi office in Baghdad last month reached a dead end, when factions loyal to Sistani withdrew after learning that Iranian-backed leaders were insisting on appointing Abu Fadak as the successor to the engineer.

Nothing has changed
and it remains unclear how the four factions separated from the crowd are integrated into the regular Iraqi security forces.

According to one of the proposed projects, which was first submitted to Al-Abadi a few years ago, a new similar directorate could be formed for the Directorate of Facilities Protection, which is responsible for the security of Iraqi government buildings, according to the author. According to this suggestion, their mission will be limited to securing religious shrines. If this happens, their task will be to report to the Ministry of the Interior.

In this regard, Muhannad Al-Aqabi, director of media for the Popular Mobilization Authority, explained that all the crowd forces are linked to the Iraqi armed forces administratively and practically, which means that this decision "will not change anything and will not affect the budget or movements of any of the remaining factions."