IRAQ’S MOST SENIOR SHIITE CLERIC BACKS MILITIAS
▶ Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani says Hashed Al Shaabi must remain after ISIL
Iraq’s most revered Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, has opposed calls to disband a controversial paramilitary force that was instrumental in defeating ISIL in the country.
Iraq is “always in desperate need of heroic men who have backed up the army and federal police, and who fought alongside them on different fronts”, said Abdel Mahdi Al Karabalai, the ayatollah’s representative.
“We need to continue to benefit from this important source of energy, within the constitution and judicial framework,” he said in a sermon at Friday prayers in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, south of the capital Baghdad.
Mr Al Karabalai stressed that the Hashed Al Shaabi’s arms belonged to the state and its mission was to defend national security.
The force was established in 2014 after Mr Al Sistani urged Iraqi citizens to take up arms against ISIL militants who had swept aside government forces and seized control of much of northern Iraq.
Known in English as the Popular Mobilisation Units, the various forces within the Hashed can field a total of between 60,000 and 140,000 fighters.
Iraq’s parliament has classed it as a state force operating within the constitution.
But the Shiite-dominated alliance remains deeply divisive. Iraq’s Sunni and Kurdish politicians have called on prime minister Haider Al Abadi to disarm the force.
They say the militias are responsible for widespread abuses including extra-judicial killings, kidnappings and displacing non-Shiite populations, and in effect report to Tehran.
The militia alliance said any abuses were isolated incidents and not systematic, and those who committed them have been punished.
Although they have fought alongside US-supported Iraqi troops, most of the Hashed militias have been armed and trained by Iran, raising fears in the West and among Arab Gulf countries that they could be used by Tehran to project its influence in Iraq and the wider region.
This month, a powerful Iranbacked Iraqi militant commander was filmed visiting the Lebanon-Israel border and expressing support for the Lebanese and Palestinians against Israel.
French president Emmanuel Macron last week proposed “a gradual demilitarisation” of the group and for all militias in Iraq to be “dismantled”.
Mr Macron’s call sparked accusations of interference from senior Iraqi officials. Vice president Nouri Al Maliki said no other country could “impose its will on the Iraqi government”.
Hashed spokesman Ahmad Al Assadi, who is also a member of parliament, said that Mr Al Sistani wanted the militias to be retained as part of Iraq’s security system.
The Hashed suffered 7,637 dead and 21,300 wounded in the three-year war to drive out ISIL, said one of their commanders, Qais Khazali.
Iraq declared final victory over ISIL on December 9, saying the extremist group had been driven out of all the Iraqi territory it once held. But Mr Karabalai said: “The victory over Daesh doesn’t mean the end of the battle with terrorism”, mentioning the existence of “sleeper cells”.
Last week, the influential Shiite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr ordered his militia, known as the Saraya Al Salam, or Peace Brigades, to disband and hand over territory held by them to state security forces.
Mr Al Sadr also demanded that members of the militia, drawn largely from among the urban poor of Baghdad and southern Iraqi cities, be given jobs or be incorporated into the official armed and security forces.
Saraya Al Salam is a part of the Hashed but was not among the militias trained and armed by Iran.
We need to continue to benefit from this important source of energy, within the constitution ABDEL MAHDI AL KARABALAI Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani’s spokesman