Iran-Backed Militias Step Up the Battle in Iraq

Iran-backed Shiite militias in Iraq are growing more powerful and confident as they operate with increasing impunity. .

The dislodging of ISIS has prompted this Shiite aggression and threats. The Popular Mobilization Units were assembled mainly out of existing Shiite militias in the summer of 2014, as the ISIS juggernaut rolled toward Baghdad. That threat necessitated a truce between the Shiite militias and U.S. forces. Yet even at the height of the war with ISIS, the Iran-backed militias did not forget their enmity for the U.S.

Gunmen murdered Iraqi novelist Alaa Mashzoub, a chronicler of Iraq’s lost Jewish community, as he rode his bicycle through his hometown of Karbala Feb. 3. Mashzoub was a bold critic of Iran’s increasing power in Iraq. His relatives believe that was what led Shiite militiamen to target him.

A few days after the killing, Aws al-Khafaji, a powerful Shiite militia leader in his own right and Mashzoub’s kinsman, appeared on TV and denounced Iranian interference in Iraq. He was captured by the Shiite militias of the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Units and has not been seen since.

The same week, in a less dramatic but equally ominous incident, Iraqi Shiite militiamen challenged a U.S. Army foot patrol near the al-Qathia base in eastern Mosul. Heavily armed men parked a vehicle in the way of the patrol and followed the U.S. troops, filming. The video clip released later triumphantly declared, against a background of tinny martial music, that the fighters of the Popular Mobilization Units’ Ninawah Command had successfully disrupted the American attempt to conduct a patrol in the city.

These events, among others, demonstrate that Iran’s Shiite militia allies are beginning to constitute a second power in Iraq, within and beside the official state. Confrontation with the 5,200 U.S. troops in the country is inevitable.

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