Iraq defence minister meets Shia ‘terrorist’ wanted by US

The Iraqi defence ministry has announced that Defence Minister Erfan Al-Hiyali has held meetings with Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, a Shia jihadist and one of the main commanders of the Iran-backed Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) paramilitary organisation. He is also blacklisted by the United States as a terrorist.

According to the defence ministry, Al-Hiyali held meetings with the militant to discuss “coordination” between the main Iraqi armed forces, under the authority of the Ministry of Defence, as well as the PMF who, although a part of Iraq’s military, have their own “committee” as an informal ministry, and answer directly to Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi’s office.

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The defence minister spoke to Al-Muhandis about the ongoing operations to recapture Mosul from Daesh militants, and discussed the further involvement of the PMF in assisting the Iraqi army to that end.

The US has frequently warned its Iraqi ally about including the PMF in operations in Mosul, as they have a history of perpetrating sectarian abuses

and human rights violations against the Sunni Arab population, documented by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the United Nations and others. Mosul, Iraq’s second city, is dominated by the Sunni Arab demographic.

At the recent Munich Security Conference, an annual conference on international security attended by high profile policymakers from around the world, Prime Minister Al-Abadi was warned by US officials to not allow PMF Shia jihadists into Mosul due to fears they may perpetrate yet more abuses, Al Jazeera reported.

There were also reports that the United States would demand that the Iraqi government forcibly disarm the PMF once the Daesh threat had been extinguished from Mosul.

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Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, born Jamal Jafar Ibrahimi, is considered a terrorist by Washington after her was convicted of planning and executing terrorist attacks against US and French embassies in Kuwait during the 1980s and the Iran-Iraq War.

Al-Muhandis fled to Iran before the outbreak of war, and was trained and supported by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) along with other Shia jihadists who were later to take on prominent positions within the Iraqi state apparatuses and ministries after Saddam Hussein was toppled by the US in 2003.

Although the US seems opposed to most of the factions within the PMF due to their loyalty to Iran, Washington supports, trains and equips the Shia Abbas Division and the Ali Al-Akbar Brigade militias.