Militia officer scoffs at U.S. call to disband

Key figure in Iraqi paramilitary group has ties to Iran

BAGHDAD — With the Islamic State group driven from nearly all of Iraq, U.S. officials have suggested that the thousands of mainly Shiite paramilitary fighters who mobilized against the Sunni extremists three years ago lay down their arms.

But Abu Mahdi alMuhandis, who once battled U.S. troops and is now the deputy head of the statesanctioned Popular Mobilization Forces, says they are here to stay.

“The future of the (PMF) is to defend Iraq,” he told the Associated Press in his first extensive interview with a Western media outlet. “The Iraqi army and Iraqi police say they cannot operate without the support of the Hashd,” he added, using a shortened Arabic term for the paramilitary force.

In the years after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, al-Muhandis led the Hezbollah Brigades, a feared Shiite militia with close ties to Iran and the Lebanese militant group of the same name. His real name is Jamal Jaafar Ibrahim, but he’s still better known by his nomde guerre, and his rise to the top ranks of Iraq’s security apparatus reflects the long, slow decline of U.S. influence over the country.

He participated in the bombing of Western embassies in Kuwait and the attempted assassination of that country’s emir in the early 1980s, for which he was convicted in absentia and added to the U.S. list of designated terrorists. But like many Shiite militants, he returned to Iraq after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Two years later, he was even elected to parliament, before being forced to step downunderAmerican pressure.

In 2009, the State Department linked him to the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, calling him a “threat to stability” in Iraq, and as recently as last week it referred to him as a terrorist.

But in the summer of 2014, when the Islamic State group swept across northern Iraq, and the U.S.-trained and funded army collapsed, his and other Shiite militias mobilized in defense, halting the extremists on the outskirts of the capital. The mostly Iran-backed militias remained separate from the U.S.-led coalition, but over the next three years they helped Iraq’s reconstituted military to drive Islamic State out of most of the country.

Today, alMuhandis, in his mid-60s, is among the most powerful men in Iraq, splitting his time between the front lines, Iran and his home and office in Baghdad’s heavilyguarded Green Zone. He describes the PMF as a “parallel military” that will help keep the peace once Islamic State is gone.

Al-Muhandis “demonstrates that Iran has a direct venue with which to influence Iraqi politics, and a powerful one at that,” said Phillip Smyth, an expert on Shiite militias at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“It’s no secret,” alMuhandis said of his close relationship with Iran, the country where he spent decades in exile and underwent military training. He said he Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis personally seeks spiritual and moral guidance from the country’s leadership, but that the PMF only gets material support from Tehran.

Last month, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson demanded that Iran-backed militiamen in Iraq return to their homes, integrate into the Iraqi army or leave the country.

Al-Muhandis casually dismissed the appeal. “Tillerson is asleep,” he said.

“Iran was the only country that supported Iraq from the beginning of the Daesh crisis,” he said, referring to the Islamic State blitz in 2014. “It’s like when you’re in a hospital and you need blood. The Americans would be the one whowould show up with the transfusion when it was too late.”

As to whether the Americans should remain in Iraq, al-Muhandis said: “We follow the Iraqi government despite our personal opinions, and our personal opinions are well known, so I won’t repeat them here.”

The PMF sprang into action again last month, when federal forces retook the northern city of Kirkuk and other disputed areas from Kurdish forces in response to the Kurds’ vote for independence in September. The military action, which caused few casualties and was celebrated as a victory by the country’s Arab majority, gave a further boost to the paramilitary forces.

“What happened in Kirkuk is a success for the Iraqi government and the Iraqi forces,” said al-Muhandis. He added that his forces helped coordinate the Kurdish withdrawal to minimize clashes and casualties. “We want a brotherhood with the Kurds,” he said, referring to their shared struggle against Saddam Hussein in the 1980s.