On June 13, 2014, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq’s top Shia cleric, issued a fatwa asking Iraqis to join the fight against terrorism. “The nature of the situation and the dangers facing Iraq and its people at the present time require defending the country, its people and the honour of its citizens,” said the cleric in his edict, which was read out by his representative Sheikh Abdul-Mahdi al-Karbalai, during Friday prayers in Karbala.
Mr. Sistani’s call came amid the rapid territorial advances made by the Islamic State (IS), a Sunni-jihadist group, in Iraq. On June 10, IS militants captured Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city. After consolidating in the north, they started moving south towards Baghdad, while also threatening Shia holy places such as Najaf and Karbala. In the north, the Iraqi military collapsed in the face of IS advance. There was panic in Baghdad, where Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was scrambling to arrest the jihadist surge. “This defence is considered a wajib kifai [collective obligation] upon a sufficient number of citizens as is needed to fulfil the task,” Mr. Sistani said in his fatwa. “Hence, the citizens who are able to bear arms and fight the terrorists in defence of their country, their people and their sanctities must volunteer to join the army and the security forces to achieve this sacred objective.”
The edict triggered the mobilisation of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi youth to fight the Islamic State. But the mobilisation did not remain confined to the army and police. Shia militias expanded and new armed groups emerged, eventually forming the core of the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMFs, or Hashd al-Shaabi).
The Iraqi state, shaken by the loss of Mosul, encouraged the militias to expand their footprint, while Iran, equally invested in defeating the IS, provided money, weapons and training to the militias. Seven groups were already operating in Iraq – Badr Organisation; Asaib Ahl al-Haq; Kataib Hezbollah; Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada; Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba; Kataib Jund al-Imam; and Kataib al-Imam Ali. Several new groups also sprang up. All these forces were brought under the PMF umbrella for better coordination in the fight against the Islamic State.
The PMF factions, which fought alongside the Iraqi military under U.S. air cover, played a key role in defeating the IS. But the battle against the jihadist group also led to the institutionalisation of the militias, which refused to disarm even after the IS was defeated and its militants were driven out of most Iraqi cities, including Mosul. Calling themselves resistance forces, the prominent factions in the PMF demanded complete American withdrawal from Iraq. The killing of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy chairman of the PMF and leader of Kataib Hezbollah, in January 2020, along with Iran’s Qassem Soleimani, in Baghdad by a U.S. air strike opened a new phase of attritional conflict between the PMF and U.S. forces in Iraq. This conflict escalated further after the U.S. launched its war on Iran this year. On September 30, when U.S. troops completed their withdrawal from Iraq, 23 years after the invasion started, the PMF, unsurprisingly, called it a “historic victory”.
Three currents
The PMF now comprises more than three dozen militias, with an estimated total strength of 240,000 fighters and an annual budget of $3.4 billion. Historically, the PMF contained three broad currents: Iran-aligned factions, Sistani-aligned shrine units and the Sadrist Saraya al-Salam. The Sistani-aligned shrine units (Abbas Combat Division, Liwa Ali al-Akbar and Imam Ali Combat Division) subsequently broke away from the PMF structure in 2020 and came under the direct authority of the commander-in-chief.
Badr Organisation, originally the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq; Kataib Hezbollah and Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba are the prominent Iran-backed factions within the PMF fold. They are also the most powerful among the militias. The most prominent Sadrist militia is Saraya al-Salam (Peace Brigades), which is aligned with the PMF but maintains a tense relationships with its command. Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shia cleric, is one of the most influential religious-political figures in post-war Iraq. He had commanded the now-dissolved Mahdi Army that resisted U.S. troops in the early days of the invasion. The Mahdi Army had received support from Iran, but Mr. Sadr later distanced himself from Iranian influence and projected Saraya al-Salam as an Iraqi nationalist militia.
The U.S. had repeatedly demanded that the Iraqi state demobilise the militias, some of which, such as Kataib Hezbollah, have been designated as terrorist groups. But both mainstream Iraqi politicians and militia commanders have resisted such calls. In 2016, the Iraqi Parliament passed the PMF commission law, which institutionalised the PMF as an independent organisation within the Iraqi armed forces.
But they continued to maintain their independent command structures. The prominent members of the PMF also formed political parties and started contesting elections. In 2018, Badr Organization, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Kataib Hezbollah and Kataib al-Imam Ali all came together to form the Fatah Alliance, a political coalition to represent the militias in the general elections (the alliance was later disbanded). Besides, the Sadrist movement has a separate political organisation, the National Shia Movement. In the current Iraqi parliament, Badr Organisation has 18 seats, while Sadiqoun Movement, another PMF-linked political bloc, has 27 seats.
The war on Iran
After the U.S. and Israel started bombing Iran on February 28, 2026, the Iran-aligned militias in the PMF started attacking American military and diplomatic facilities in Iraq. According to U.S. officials, they carried out some 600 attacks since the war broke out and the U.S. launched air strikes targeting these groups. But the U.S. found it increasingly difficult to deter PMF factions whose decentralised operational tactics and geographical spread worked in their favour. Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi had said earlier that the militias would be demobilised by September 30, the deadline for U.S. troops withdrawal. After the U.S. troops completed their pullback, Mr. Zaidi said the process of demobilisation had begun, and pushed the deadline to June 2027. Some militias such as Kataib Imam Ali and Saraya al-Salam have reached an understanding with the government to hand over weapons and regularise their status. But the more powerful ones such as Kataib Hezbollah and Nujaba have resisted the calls for disarmament, saying the Islamic resistance would continue as long as American military presence in the region continues.
Both the U.S. and the militias have agreed to refrain from attacking each other for 90 days following the withdrawal of U.S. troops, according to Iraqi officials. But with the war on Iran unresolved and some PMF factions deeply entangled with Iran, any escalation between Tehran and Washington could have a direct impact on Iraq.
Published – October 04, 2026 02:02 am IST
