Will Iraq merge the forces of popular mobilization in the state? | Israel Iran

On July 27, two popular mobilization brigades stormed the Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture, and clashed with the police.

While the accident can be considered a struggle for power for the situation, it also indicates a certain degree of audacity on the side of the brigades, which ended up killing a police officer.

The brigades were summoned by Iyad Kadim Ali after his rejection as head of the ministry office in the Karkh area in Baghdad, according to Muhammad Alaa, an expert in the Shiite militias in Iraq. Analysts told Al Jazerara that Ali belongs to Kataib Hezbollah, as well as the brigades that attacked the ministry.

The accident is seen as a Litmus test whether the Iraqi state can bear the PMF factions responsible for breaking the law.

The Iraqi government argues to pass a new legislation – which will fully combine PMF in the country – will help them to do so. Supporters of the bill argue that the PMF will stimulate the disposal within the limits of the law, but its critics fear that it will give a legal cover for the militias, which are already very strong.

PMF

PMF, also known as Al -Hambi, is an umbrella organization for Shiite armed groups, most of which have close ties with neighboring Iran. A few of these groups appeared for the first time during the Iraqi resistance of the American occupation.

For example, ASA’IB AHL separated from the Mahdi Army, which was previously the dominant arm of the Shiite rebellion, in 2007. The group received Iranian support to become a major electricity generation in Iraq and later interfered in the civil war in Syria to support President Bashar Esad and also tried to crush it with a common distribution.

Kataib Imam Ali is another group, although it is smaller, at the PMF, he received training from the Lebanese Group Hezbollah in Iran and also sent fighters to Syria during the height of its war.

Like Kataib Imam Ali, most PMF factions were formed after the Iraqi aromatic Ayatollah Girl issued the girl in 2014, and he urged all physical men to join the state to defend Iraq from ISIS (ISIS).

At that time, ISIL controls large areas of land throughout Syria and Iraq, equivalent to England. ISIS even seized the Iraqi city of Mosul and declared the “caliphate” from there.

By 2016, the Iraq Parliament issued a law that has recognized as an element in the national security of the state.

But the law lacks clarity over leadership, control and budget control, and has failed to prevent some groups from taking unilateral action to attack the assets of the United States and the soldiers stationed in the country.

In 2024, for example, PMF got a budget of $ 3.4 billion, which exceeded the total budget of Lebanon.

Although the number is small for 21.1 billion dollars allocated to the Iraqi Ministry of Defense in the same year, it is a large amount for the state to allocate the authority, which had no accurate membership list for it.

Each PMF faction offers a list of the names to be paid, then these lists are reviewed by the Ministry of Finance. However, the PMF leaders often intervene to pay payments through Untchallenge, according to a 2021 report issued by Chatham House Think Tank.

Suggested estimates that there are 238,000 PMF fighters.

Getting a share of the PMF budget helped in its pursuit of the brand itself as a legitimate entity in Iraq.

“From the beginning, the PMF insisted that he was part of the state, not a militia,” said Renad Mansour, an expert in Iraq with Chatham House.

Over the past ten years, the PMF factions have created political wings, nominated in the parliamentary elections and obtained the possibility of access to the profitable state funds after securing important administrative positions in the main ministries.

However, with the accumulation of power, some used their arms against the state to protect their care networks and influence the main ministries.

In 2021, the PMF groups linked to Iran launched a drone at the house of then ministers, Mustafa Al -Kaidimi, according to an attempt to raise the government after losing many parliamentary seats and thus reaching state funds in the last elections, said the expert, the expert in Xia Xia.

New law

The Iraqi government drafted the new law in March. It will give all official PMF factions, stable workers and bring them under the control of Prime Minister Mohamed Xia Al -Sudani as the Supreme Commander

Law draft supporters mainly include a mass of five Shiite parties known as the coordination framework.

“The argument paid by those who defend the law is that by providing an uglier safe haven for armed factions under the reformist PMF, it will motivate those who comply with the national leadership series – and thus reduce their appetite to take action outside the state in Keingary.”

More importantly, for PMF, the law provides a legal cover that affects the need at a time when the United States and Israel threaten the targeted groups that Iranian agents consider.

PMF members will give full access to intelligence, which some argue that it is a risky proposal because intelligence can be transferred to Iran.

However, analysts said that many PMF factions will be more anxious about the base of its strength and origins more than followed Iranian interests.

During the 12 -day Iran war in Israel, the PMF groups did not attack American assets or employees, most likely for fear of giving Israel an excuse to attack the leadership structure and resources as Israel did against Hezbollah, according to a report issued by the Royal Services Institute.

Mansour said: “I would like to say that the most powerful and most included PMF groups were the ones who were practicing restraint and telling the smaller factions (pro -Iran) not to participate in the regional conflict (between Iran and Israel).”

Follow -up in the Ministry of Agriculture incident will test the PMF leaders’ readiness to cooperate with the state to hold their members accountable, as well as the seriousness of the state in holding PMF members, according to Rudolph.

She said that the Sudanese showed a “strong will” by referring all the participants in the raid to the judiciary and called for the formation of a review committee to investigate “neglect in the duties of leadership and control” within the PMF.

“The Sudanese administration wants to show power on PMF and (to prove) that every person belongs to him does not have the same privileges as members of the security forces, but they have to adhere to the same code of the rules of behavior.”

Stress against the new law

Zaidon Al -Kenani, an expert in Iraq and assistant teacher at Georgetown University in Qatar, said that not everyone in Iraq supports the PMF integration.

He said that many PMF factions were affected and even killed hundreds of young demonstrators who were demonstrating against what they considered the corrupt political elite in 2019.

As a result, civil society is concerned about seeing all PMF factions in giving the same privileges as the Iraq Army and the police, and it is preferable for the government to absorb only those who have no close ties with Iran, as Kenani said.

US officials also pressure Iraq because the law is not passed with Foreign Minister Marco Rubio, according to what the Sudanese reported that the law “will lead to the Iranian influence and armed terrorist groups that undermine the sovereignty of Iraq.”

Former and current Iraqi officials have argued that the state could not solve the PMF and any attempt to do this could lead to sectarian violence.

Al -Kenani warned that the United States could lead to a conflict by submitting unreasonable demands without supporting Iraq to implement them.

“When it comes to Iraq, the United States provides intense demands (without) the support of the Iraqi government or civil society to ensure its protection from any repercussions,” he said to the island of Al -Jazeera.