12 day war in june<\/a>The officer said. Militia officials confirmed the claim. During that war, operations were strictly centralized. As a result, greater autonomy was granted to the region.<\/p>\nA spokesman for Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujba, among the Iran-backed militia groups that attacked the US in Iraq, said there was “coordination” with Iran in launching the attack, but did not provide details. <\/p>\n
Mahdi al-Kaabi said, “Since we are allies of the Islamic Republic, we have coordination with our brothers in the Islamic Republic.” <\/p>\n
Knights said that in the recent war, key Iraqi militia leaders appeared to be withdrawing in the latest phase and not directly involved in the operation. According to militia officials, the American attacks largely killed mid-level commanders. <\/p>\n
“No first-line leaders have been killed,” said a second militia officer, who was not authorized to provide information to journalists. <\/p>\n
Instead of targeting top figures, the US also focused on Iranian Revolutionary Guard advisory cells, said Knights, who tracked the attacks. An attack in Baghdad’s posh Jadriya neighborhood killed three Guard advisers at a house used as their headquarters during a meeting, according to a second militia officer.<\/p>\n
At the core of government efforts to rein in militia groups is a paradox: The groups the government says it cannot control are linked to the political parties that brought them to power.<\/p>\n
The Coordination Framework, a coalition of influential pro-Iran Shia factions, helped install Mohammed Shia al-Sudani as prime minister in 2022. He now serves as acting Prime Minister amid a prolonged political deadlock.<\/p>\n
Militia forces attacking American targets are not bad actors; They are part of the kingdom’s Popular Mobilization Forces, which was created after the fall of Mosul in 2014 to formalize the volunteer units that were key in defeating Islamic State.<\/p>\n
The PMF has grown into a powerful force that surpasses the Iraqi Army, whose fighters receive state salaries and access to government resources, including weapons and intelligence. Critics say the result is a deep contradiction: Some state-funded groups act in line with Iranian priorities, even if doing so undermines Iraq’s national interests. <\/p>\n
Al-Sudani’s office did not respond to AP requests for comment on decentralized control of militia groups.<\/p>\n
A senior Iraqi Kurdish official and a Western diplomat said the US was focusing on curbing the power of these groups in Iraq, which would increase pressure on the government, which is still operating in a caretaker status. The diplomat also spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to brief journalists.<\/p>\n
Last week, Iraq’s ambassador to the US was summoned to Washington to hear US condemnation of attacks by Iran-backed groups on US personnel and diplomatic missions, according to State Department deputy spokesman Tommy Bigot.<\/p>\n
“The Deputy Secretary reaffirmed that the United States will not tolerate any attacks targeting its interests and expects the Iraqi government to immediately take all necessary measures to eliminate Iran-aligned militia groups,” Bigot said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Al-Sudani has taken limited steps to curb the militia’s influence, including further institutionalizing the PMF and sometimes removing commanders who operate outside state authority. The efforts have faced significant resistance from militia groups.<\/p>\n
Making them more institutionalized has further deepened their hold within the state. The US could try to separate the most radical factions \u2013 including Kata’ib Hezbollah, Harakat al-Nujaba and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada \u2013 from other factions within Iraq’s political system. A senior Iraqi Kurdish officer said, “A worse militia than a bad militia.”<\/p>\n
Harakat al-Nujaba’s spokesman al-Kaabi offered a dual framing of the group’s position, emphasizing both its alignment with Iran and its claim to the legitimacy of the Iraqi state.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo put it bluntly, we are allies of the Islamic Republic,\u201d he said. He described the group as part of Iran’s regional “axis” along with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Ansar Allah in Yemen. <\/p>\n
At the same time, he stressed that the group works within Iraq’s political system, supporting the state and government when they serve national interests.<\/p>\n
“It is true that we are not affiliated with the government or the Prime Minister, but we respect the law and the Constitution,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Baghdad– Iran has given more autonomy to its commanders militia in iraqAllowing some groups to operate without Tehran’s approval, a change driven by pressure warThree militia members and two other officials told The Associated Press. Many Iran-backed militias are funded through the Iraqi state budget and included within the security apparatus, leading to criticism from<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":84788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[9457,23159,3195,312,311,23955,851,666,367],"class_list":{"0":"post-84741","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bible-news","8":"tag-commanders","9":"tag-driven","10":"tag-field","11":"tag-iran","12":"tag-iraq","13":"tag-militias","14":"tag-power","15":"tag-pressure","16":"tag-war"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84741"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84792,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84741\/revisions\/84792"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}