Almost all militias fighting in Iraq are Iranian, claims researcher

A senior researcher in Iraq has claimed that “90 per cent” of the militias fighting in the country “are Iranian.” Dr Yahya El-Kubaisi, of the Iraqi Centre for Strategic Studies, made his claim at a conference in Amman and pointed out that Iran “is one of the parties involved in the Iraqi crisis.”

In a paper delivered on Sunday during the “Jordan in a Changing Regional Environment – Scenarios of Next Stage” conference, El-Kubaisi added that Iraq is suffering from “corruption in the judiciary and among those who dominate the executive.”

In the workshop devoted to the Iraqi crisis and the future of Jordan in light of the regional situation, he insisted that the international and regional community must intervene to restructure the political regime in Iraq. “ISIS has turned the conflict from an internal affair into a regional crisis,” he explained. The militant group, he believes, is a product of the political crisis in Iraq.

During the conference, which was organised by the Quds Centre for Political Studies, Dr El-Kubaisi said that Jordan has a problem in determining the nature of its relationship with Iraq.

In his contribution to the discussion, Iraqi political analyst and researcher Dr Haidar Saied said that the division of Iraq is not in the interest of anyone, and is not raised in talks. Kurdistan’s independence, however, is coming and the topic is being raised now.

“The Shia political elite do not realise the geopolitical situation of Iraq,” he claimed, noting that the Iraqi political regime “enables corruption to exist”. This means, he concluded, that the Iraqi state “is unable to reform the public sector and service sector.”