How Iran's military chiefs operate in Iraq

The face stares out from multiple billboards in central Baghdad, a grey-haired general casting a watchful eye across the Iraqi capital. This military commander is not Iraqi, though. He's Iranian. The posters are a recent arrival, reflecting the influence Iran now wields in Baghdad. Iraq is a mainly Arab country. Its citizens, Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims alike, have long mistrusted Iran, the Persian nation to the east. But as Baghdad struggles to fight Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), many Shi'ite Iraqis now look to Iran, a Shi'ite theocracy, as their main ally. In particular, Iraqi Shi'ites have grown to trust the powerful Iranian-backed militias that have taken charge since the Iraqi army deserted en masse last summer. Dozens of paramilitary groups have united under a secretive branch of the Iraqi government called the Popular Mobilisation Committee, or Hashid Shaabi. From its position at the nexus between Tehran, the Iraqi government, and the militias, it is increasingly influential in determining the country's future. Until now, little has been known about the body. But in a series of interviews with Reuters, key Iraqi figures inside Hashid Shaabi have detailed the ways the paramilitary groups, Baghdad and Iran collaborate, and the role Iranian advisers play both inside the group and on the frontlines. Those who spoke to Reuters include two senior figures in the Badr Organisation, perhaps the single most powerful Shi'ite paramilitary group, and the commander of a relatively new militia called Saraya al-Khorasani.

In all, Hashid Shaabi oversees and coordinates several dozen factions. The insiders say most of the groups followed a call to arms by Iraq's leading Shi'ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. But they also cite the religious guidance of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, as a key factor in their decision to fight and, as they see it, defend Iraq. Hadi al-Amiri, the leader of the Badr Organisation, told Reuters: "The majority of us believe that ... Khamenei has all the qualifications as an Islamic leader. He is the leader not only for Iranians but the Islamic nation. I believe so and I take pride in it." He insisted there was no conflict between his role as an Iraqi political and military leader and his fealty to Khamenei. "Khamenei would place the interests of the Iraqi people above all else," Amiri said. Hashid Shaabi is headed by Jamal Jaafar Mohammed, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mahdi al-Mohandis, a former Badr commander who once plotted against Saddam Hussein and whom American officials have accused of bombing the U.S. embassy in Kuwait in 1983. Iraqi officials say Mohandis is the right-hand man of Qassem Soleimani, head of the Quds Force, part of Iran's Revolutionary Guard. Mohandis is praised by some militia fighters as "the commander of all troops" whose "word is like a sword above all groups." The body he heads helps coordinate everything from logistics to military operations against ISIS.

The men have known each other for more than 20 years, according to Muen al-Kadhimi, a Badr Organisation leader in western Baghdad. "If we look at this history," Kadhimi said, "it helped significantly in organizing the Hashid Shaabi and creating a force that achieved a victory that 250,000 (Iraqi) soldiers and 600,000 interior ministry police failed to do." Kadhimi said the main leadership team usually consulted for three to four weeks before major military campaigns. "We look at the battle from all directions, from first determining the field ... how to distribute assignments within the Hashid Shaabi battalions, consult battalion commanders and the logistics," he said. Soleimani, he said, "participates in the operation command center from the start of the battle to the end, and the last thing (he) does is visit the battle's wounded in the hospital."

Iraqi and Kurdish officials put the number of Iranian advisers in Iraq between 100 and several hundred - fewer than the nearly 3,000 American officers training Iraqi forces. In many ways, though, the Iranians are a far more influential force. Iraqi officials say Tehran's involvement is driven by its belief that ISIS is an immediate danger to Shi'ite religious shrines not just in Iraq but also in Iran. Shrines in both nations, but especially in Iraq, rank among the sect's most sacred. The Iranians, the Iraqi officials say, helped organize the Shi'ite volunteers and militia forces after Grand Ayatollah Sistani called on Iraqis to defend their country days after ISIS seized control of the northern city of Mosul last June.

They have also provided troops. Several Kurdish officials said that when ISIS fighters pushed close to the Iraq-Iran border in late summer, Iran dispatched artillery units to Iraq to fight them. Farid Asarsad, a senior official from the semi-autonomous Kurdish Regional Government, said Iranian troops often work with Iraqi forces. In northern Iraq, Kurdish peshmerga soldiers "dealt with the technical issues like identifying targets in battle, but the launching of rockets and artillery – the Iranians were the ones who did that."