The fighters of Iraq who answer to Iran

BAGHDAD, Iraq ( Reuters) — Like the fighters, Khazali wore green camouflage. But he also sported a shoulder-strapped pistol and sunglasses and was flanked by armed bodyguards. When he was not on the battlefield, the 40-yearold Iraqi donned the robes and white turban of a cleric.

Khazali is the head of a militia called Asaib Ahl al-Haq that is backed by Iran. Thanks to his position, he is one of the most feared and respected militia leaders in Iraq, and one of Iran’s most important representatives in the country.

His militia is one of three small Iraqi Shi’ite armies, all backed by Iran, which together have become the most powerful military force in Iraq since the collapse of the national army in June.

Alongside Asaib Ahl al-Haq, there are the Badr Brigades, formed in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq War, and the younger and more secretive Kataib Hezbollah. The three militias have been instrumental in battling Islamic State ( IS), the extremist movement from Islam’s rival Sunni sect.

The militias, and the men who run them, are key to Iran’s power and influence inside neighboring Iraq.

That influence is rooted in the two countries’ shared religious beliefs. Iran’s population is overwhelmingly Shi’ite, as are the majority of Iraqis. Tehran has built up its influence in the past decade by giving political backing to the Iraqi government, and weapons and advisers to the militias and the remnants of the Iraqi military, say current and former Iraqi officials.

That was clear this summer, when fighters from all three militias took on IS. During IS’s siege of one town, Amerli, Kataib Hezbollah helicoptered in 50 of its best fighters, according to Abu Abdullah, a local Kataib Hezbollah commander. The fighters set up an operations room to coordinate with the Iraqi army, the other militia groups, and advisers from the Quds Force, the branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that handles operations outside Iran and oversees Tehran’s Iraqi militias.

Over days of fierce fighting in August, and with the help of US bombing raids – a rare example of Iran and the United States fighting a common enemy – those forces successfully expelled IS.

Tehran’s high profile contrasts sharply with Washington’s. Both Iran and the United States are preparing for a long battle against IS. But Iraqi officials say the two take very different views of Iraq.