The axis of resistance...the idea and its limits (5): Iraq’s factions from the founding until the flood

Resistance factions in Iraq (Al Jazeera)

The Al Jazeera Net website publishes an integrated file entitled “The Axis of Resistance... The Idea and Its Limits,” which discusses in detail the idea of ​​the axis, the indications for its founding, the history of formation, and its contexts.

The file also addresses the edges of the axis that revolve in its orbit and are linked to its nucleus, and the spaces in which they operate, and describes the states of polarization and repulsion between its components and their surroundings.

In the file, we examine the relationship of the axis with the Palestinian resistance, which in the Gaza Strip - led by the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) - is waging the “Al-Aqsa Flood” battle against the Israeli aggression that has been ongoing for 110 days.

The file will be published as a series of episodes. We will begin by talking about Iran as the nucleus of this axis, then we will talk about Syria, the golden link in it, and then we will discuss how did the Houthis reach the sea? Speaking about Hezbollah, we will discuss the attack strategy within the rules of engagement, and in Iraq, the militias affiliated with the Axis from its establishment to Operation Flood.

Link to the first episode: Iran...the idea of ​​the axis and its limits

Link to the second episode: The idea and its limits (2): Syria, the golden circle

Link to the third episode: The idea and its limits (3): How did the Houthis reach the sea?

Link to the Fourth Alliance: The idea and its limits (4) Hezbollah and striking within the rules of engagement

Armed militias in Iraq: from their establishment to the flood attacks

Ahmed Mawlana

The day after the Baptist Hospital massacre in Gaza on October 17, which claimed the lives of about 500 martyrs, American bases in Iraq and Syria began to be subjected to attacks by drones and missiles, the number of which approached 140 attacks by mid-January.

These attacks were claimed by what is known as the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq,” which is an umbrella banner that includes five prominent groups including: “Badr Organization,” “Iraqi Hezbollah Brigades,” “Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq,” “Harakat al-Nujaba,” and “Al-Nujaba Movement.” Sayyid al-Shuhada Brigades,” as well as front groups, concealing the responsibility of major groups for the attacks.

This article attempts to answer the following questions: When and how were these groups formed? Who are its leaders? What is its relationship with Iran? What is its position on the United States of America? What is the goal of these attacks?

A history of defections

The roots of most of the groups affiliated with the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq” go back to the “Dawa Party” and the entities that emerged from its womb, such as: “The Sadrist Movement” and the “Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution.”

The Dawa Party was founded in 1957 by the thinker Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, with the support of the Shiite authority Mohsen al-Hakim, in the face of the nationalist and communist tide.

When the Baath Party came to rule Iraq in 1968, it clashed with the Dawa Party, and Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr issued a fatwa prohibiting belonging to the Baath Party.

Later, Baqir al-Sadr supported the Iranian revolution, but he disagreed with the theory of “Guardianship of the Jurist,” and saw that the guardianship of the leader of the revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, included the limits of his control in his country only.

With the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War in 1980, Saddam Hussein’s regime executed Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, and in response, in the same year, the Dawa Party established its first training camp in Iran under the name “Camp al-Sadr.”

But the party was unable to maintain the unity of its ranks, so in 1982 Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, the son of the authority Mohsen al-Hakim, defected from it and founded the “Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution” and formed a military arm of the council called the “Badr Corps” to fight alongside the Iranian forces against the Iraqi army.

The Dawa Party's supporters were distributed between Syria, Europe, and Iran, while Muhammad Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr led his followers inside Iraq. Then, after his assassination in 1999, his son Muqtada al-Sadr took over the leadership of the Sadrist movement, thus crystallizing a Shiite trilogy that included the Dawa Party, the Sadrist movement, and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution.

There were successive developments in the structure of the Shiite components with the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, as the cadres of the Dawa Party and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution returned to Baghdad as part of an alliance with Washington that included a wide sector of the Iraqi opposition abroad, while the Sadrist movement established the “Mahdi Army,” which engaged in Confrontations with the American occupation forces in 2004.

Later, fighting occurred between the Mahdi Army and the Iraqi government forces during the era of Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister belonging to the Dawa Party, and then Al-Sadr issued a decision in 2008 to freeze the Mahdi Army’s activity under the pretext of working to remove sectarian elements from its ranks.

During the period extending from 2003 to 2014, several issues emerged that led to splits in the three major Shiite components, and many groups emerged from their womb, which coincided with Tehran’s desire to work with its allies in the form of networks, allowing it to hold the strings of the game and divide the work. And avoid “putting all your eggs in one basket,” a tactic that confuses opponents and leaves them facing a maze of endless entities, making it difficult for them to track them down.

Among the most prominent issues that led to these splits are:

• The position on the American occupation.

• The limits of the relationship with Iran based on the position on the theory of guardianship of the jurist.

• Personal disputes over leadership and influence.

The "Islamic State" organization's control over the city of Mosul and its advance towards Baghdad led to the issuance of a fatwa from the Shiite authority Ali al-Sistani, according to which the "Popular Mobilization Forces" was established in 2014.

The Iraqi militias took advantage of the opportunity to establish brigades from among their members within the PMF under their supervision, despite the PMF’s official subordination to the Iraqi Prime Minister, who holds the position of Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. The most prominent of these factions are:

Badr Organization (social networking sites)

Badr Organization

It arose from the womb of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution. In 2003, the council’s founder, Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, was assassinated. The council became involved in the political process launched by Washington, and many of its military cadres affiliated with the Badr Corps were integrated into the new Iraqi Ministry of Interior. Then later, by 2004, the name of the Corps was changed to the “Badr Organization.”

The Badr Organization played the role of an intermediary group between the Dawa Party and subsequent militias. Many of those who came to it from the Dawa Party later split from it and founded their own groups, such as: Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, founder of the “Hezbollah Brigades,” and Abu Mustafa al-Shaybani, founder of the “Master of Martyrs Brigades.”

With the death of the leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, in 2009, and the young man, Ammar al-Hakim, assuming leadership, a leadership vacuum occurred that led to the defection of Hadi al-Amiri in 2012, so he allied with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, where he served as Minister of Transport.

The Badr Organization has ten full brigades within the Popular Mobilization Forces, which have enjoyed a close relationship with the Revolutionary Guard since the era of its leaders’ presence in Iran.

It has a political arm that includes dozens of members in the House of Representatives within the “Al-Fatah” bloc, and it has a satellite channel called “Al-Ghadir.”

However, it is the least vocal in adopting statements or attacks hostile to American forces, which is attributed to the presence of political activity within the structure of the Iraqi state that it wants to preserve and expand without clashing with Washington.

Members of the Iraqi Hezbollah Brigades in a previous military parade in Baghdad (Iraqi Press)

Hezbollah Brigades

It was founded by Jaafar Ibrahim, known as Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, in 2005. He is a veteran leader who gained experience from his experience in the Dawa Party, then his leadership of the Badr Corps before the era of Hadi Al-Amiri’s leadership.

Al-Muhandis assumed responsibility for coordination between the Iraqi militias and the Revolutionary Guards, and became the most prominent assistant in Iraq to the commander of the Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani.

Al-Muhandis added three brigades from the Iraqi Hezbollah Brigades to the Popular Mobilization Forces, assumed the position of Chief of Staff of the Mobilization Forces, and his assistant, Abu Zainab al-Lami, assumed the position of Head of the Mobilization Security Service.

Since 2015, the Hezbollah Brigades, under the umbrella of the Popular Mobilization Forces, have taken control of the “Jurf al-Sakhar” area, southwest of Baghdad, from the Islamic State, and changed its name to “Jurf al-Nasr,” displaced its residents, and established a military manufacturing complex and training camps that are prohibited for anyone to enter. Other forces, including the Iraqi army.

The Phalange's bases in Jurf al-Sakhar in Iraq, and in Albukamal in Syria, where its forces are deployed, are exposed to repeated American raids in response to its attacks against American bases, and are also sometimes exposed to Israeli raids.

An attack carried out by the Phalange in December 2019 on a military base in Kirkuk, northern Iraq, led to the killing of an American contractor. The American response, under the administration of President Donald Trump, in early 2020, was to assassinate engineer Rifqa Qassem Soleimani near Baghdad Airport. Al-Muhandis was succeeded in the leadership of the PMF staff by Phalange member Abdulaziz al-Muhammadawi, “Abu Fadak,” who is listed on the US terrorist lists.

The Phalange has a political arm called the “Rights Movement,” and is led by a member of the House of Representatives, Hussein Mu’nis. The Phalange also has front groups such as the “League of Revolutionaries,” which in March 2020 claimed responsibility for an attack on “Camp Taji” that claimed the lives of two American soldiers and a British soldier, and it has the “Al-Ittijah” channel. "The satellite channel, as well as institutions for social and cultural services, runs scouting activities through the "Imam Hussein Scouts Association."

Asaib Ahl al-Haq (social networking sites)

League of the Righteous

It was founded in 2005 after the defection of two brothers Qais and Laith Al-Khazali and Akram Al-Kaabi from the Sadrist movement, but unlike the Badr Organization, they chose to fight the occupation forces. The American army arrested Qais and Laith for their involvement in a kidnapping incident and then killed 5 American soldiers from the Karbala Governorate building in 2007, but it released They were released in 2010 as part of a prisoner exchange.

After the American withdrawal from Iraq, Asaib worked to form a political arm that would allow it to penetrate the structure of the political system. It formed the “Al-Sadiqoun” bloc, which won one seat in the 2014 elections, then its share in the 2018 elections increased to 15 seats. Asaib member Naeem Al-Aboudi currently holds the position of Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Iraq.

Militarily, Asaib integrated three of its brigades into the Popular Mobilization Forces, to benefit from government funding for it, which amounted to $2.6 billion in 2023. A number of its cadres also work in the Iraqi intelligence service. Asa’ib has close relations with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

Asaib has engaged in attacks against American bases in Iraq since 2019 to pressure Washington to withdraw its forces, and so the US State Department announced the designation of Asaib as a terrorist group in 2020, with Qais and Laith al-Khazali added to the list of terrorists.

Al-Nujaba Movement (Al Jazeera)

Al-Nujaba Movement

It was founded by Akram Al-Kaabi in 2013 after his defection from Asaib Ahl al-Haq. Al-Kaabi focused on the military aspect and fighting in Syria under the supervision of the Revolutionary Guard.

“Al-Nujaba” has forces within the Popular Mobilization Forces that operate under the name “Brigade 112,” and it also supervises scouting activity through the “Al-Nujaba Boys Scout Association.”

Al-Kaabi is considered one of the most prominent hawks in criticizing the American presence in Iraq, and he is the least interested of his counterparts in parliamentary work. He did not establish a political bloc that expresses his orientations.

He is open about his closeness to Tehran, as he declared in 2015 during an interview with Al-Sumaria Channel that he is obedient to the orders of the Revolutionary Guide, Ali Khamenei, even if he orders him to overthrow the Iraqi government or fight in any other country.

Al-Kaabi has relations with Russia, as he visited Moscow in November 2022 to meet with Mikhail Bogdanov, Deputy Foreign Minister and the Russian President’s special envoy to the Middle East and African countries.

Al-Nujaba has many front groups that target US bases in Syria and Iraq, such as the “Ashab al-Kahf” group, which announced itself in 2019, and claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks with explosive devices on US base supply convoys, in addition to its bombing of the US embassy in Baghdad in 2020, leading to Attacking Turkish bases in northern Iraq.

Due to its opposition activity, the US State Department classified “Al-Nujaba” on the list of terrorist groups in 2019.

Sayyid al-Shuhada Brigades (social networking sites)

Sayyid al-Shuhada Brigades

It was founded by Abu Mustafa Al-Shaibani in 2013 after his defection from the Iraqi Hezbollah Brigades, and it participated mainly in the fighting in Syria. Since 2014, it has been led by “Alaa Al-Wala’i”, followed by the “14th Brigade” of the Popular Mobilization Forces, and has a political wing led by MP Faleh Al-Khazali.

It is considered the most active group, along with Kataib Hezbollah, in launching attacks against American forces in Syria, and therefore its bases were exposed several times to American raids.

The position on the American presence and the relationship with Iran

The aforementioned groups control many unofficial border crossings between Iraq and Syria, and use them to transport fighters and equipment, as at least 10,000 Iraqi fighters participated in the war in Syria.

These groups operate according to a vision that aims to launch usually non-lethal attacks on American forces, which number 2,500 soldiers in Iraq, and 900 in Syria, in order to push them towards leaving the “West Asia” region, according to the Iranian description.

It is also intensifying its attacks in Syria due to the lack of political restrictions imposed on its work there, and to spare the Iraqi government as much as possible from the pressures it is exposed to from Washington. Most of the Iraqi governments during the last decade - with the exception of the Al-Kadhimi government - came from the “coordination framework” in which the political arms of the Badr Organization participate. And Asaib Ahl al-Haqq.

The Hezbollah Brigades and the Nujaba Movement openly declare their adherence to the guardianship of the jurist, which puts them in a clash with the Sadrist movement, and there are also sensitivities with the authority in Najaf, which prompted Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani to announce through his official representative Ahmed al-Safi in 2020 about “the need for Iraq to be its own master.” It is ruled by its children, and there is no role for outsiders in its decisions,” referring to reservations about the association of many Iraqi militias with Tehran.

Gaza war and escalation of attacks

In recent years, the aforementioned militias have worked within the "Coordinating Body of the Iraqi Resistance." With the beginning of the war in Gaza on October 7, the most prominent political leader Hadi Al-Amiri stated on the 10th of the same month that if the United States intervened in the war against the Hamas movement, all American sites would become vulnerable to targeting.

Then came statements from the Secretary-General of the Hezbollah Brigades, Ahmed Al-Hamidawi, the leader of Al-Nujaba, Akram Al-Kaabi, and the leader of the Sayyid Martyrs Brigades, Abu Alaa Al-Wala’i, that their groups would participate in the fighting if the United States or any other country became involved in it.

The threat turned into action by launching the first attacks using drones that attacked the American forces at the “Ain al-Asad” base in western Anbar and the “Harir” base in Kurdistan on October 18, that is, the day after the Baptist Hospital massacre in Gaza. Then the attacks extended on October 19. October to the "Al-Tanf" base and the "Koniko" gas field in Syria, leading to launching attacks with ballistic missiles and drones on Eilat, Haifa, and the Karish gas platform in the occupying state.

The Iraqi militias worked under a new banner called “Islamic Resistance in Iraq” in order to divert responsibility for the attacks and confuse the American forces. They were also keen to avoid causing serious human damage to the American side, and therefore about 140 attacks did not result in the occurrence of about 140 attacks from October 18 to mid-October. In January, only one American contractor died of a heart attack and dozens of American soldiers were injured, most of them with minor injuries.

Attack on the Washington Embassy

The missile attack on December 8, 2023, on the US Embassy in Baghdad, angered Washington. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin contacted Iraqi Prime Minister Muhammad Shia al-Sudani to demand that he take action against the perpetrators of the attack. Al-Sudani decided to refer the officers and soldiers authorized to protect the place to investigation. .

It was announced a week after the attack that the perpetrators had been arrested, who were found to be affiliated with the Iraqi Hezbollah Brigades and the Al-Nujaba Movement, which sparked tension between them and the Iraqi government.

On the other hand, the US Army launched several raids on their bases in Iraq and Syria, killing dozens of their members. In January 2024, the US Army assassinated Mushtaq al-Saeedi, the military leader of the Nujaba Movement, along with his assistant and a number of his guards, in an air bombardment east of Baghdad.

In November 2023, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on 7 leaders of the Hezbollah Brigades and the Sayyid Martyrs Brigades, and included the latter on the lists of terrorist groups.

Some groups affiliated with the "Islamic Resistance in Iraq", such as the "Badr Organization" and "Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq", focused on strengthening their presence within the institutions of the Iraqi state, while the Al-Nujaba Movement and the "Master of Martyrs" Brigades focused on fighting in Syria and securing the land line from Iran to Iraq and Syria. While the Hezbollah Brigades mixed the two approaches.

The aforementioned groups did not seek to wage a large-scale battle against the American presence in Iraq and Syria, and in return, Washington resorted to carrying out strikes against the perpetrators and planners of attacks targeting its forces to consolidate deterrence equations, without launching pre-emptive offensive operations in light of its keenness to avoid the expansion of the war in Gaza into a regional war. However, something new happened that changed the aforementioned equation.

A new turn in the conflict

The equation of the conflict between the Islamic resistance in Iraq and the American army changed with the impact of the drone attack on an American military base on the Jordanian-Syrian border on January 27, 2024, which resulted in the killing of 3 American soldiers and the wounding of 40 others.

Following the attack, Washington bared its teeth and began carrying out air strikes and missile strikes on February 2, 2024, against positions belonging to the Quds Force and headquarters of Iraqi militias in Syria and Iraq, as part of a campaign that Washington says will be lengthy and will include a number of countries.

However, at the same time, the early American warning before launching the attack contributed to the militias’ evacuation of their headquarters, which reduced the amount of losses among its members.

The escalation dynamic imposed itself on all parties, prompting them to change positions and exchange seats. Washington, which is working to restore deterrence and curb Iraqi militia attacks without engaging in a regional war, has engaged in expanded military attacks, and has become at the heart of a conflict extending from Iraq and Syria to Yemen, while the Brigades Hezbollah, usually the most escalatory, took a sharp turn in trying to absorb Washington's anger by announcing the cessation of its attacks against American forces.

While Akram Al-Kaabi, leader of the Al-Nujaba Movement, announced that his group and the rest of the components of the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq” would continue to launch attacks on American forces until the ceasefire in Gaza and the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq.

The conflict of goals between Washington and the Iraqi militias opens the door to further mutual escalation according to the “action and reaction” approach within a fluid landscape that changes according to developments, which may lead to further escalation, and at the same time it may push Tehran to put pressure on Iraqi groups to absorb the outburst of anger. The current American situation, and return to the equation before the Jordan attack, or even stop the attacks completely, as Kataib Hezbollah did.

Source: Al Jazeera