Iraq’s Shiite Militias: Another wild card in the Iran War
By Dr. James E. Sulton Jr.
JA International Correspondent
When the United States and Israel launched “Operation Epic Fury” against Iran on February 28, 2026 – a campaign that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in a decapitation strike – the fighting did not confine itself to Iranian territory. Within hours, Iraq’s network of Iran-aligned Shiite militias joined the fight. They fired drones at American and Israeli-linked targets and pulled Iraq into the middle of a war it did not start. More than six months later, these militia groups remain one of the most consequential – and least controllable – forces in the conflict.
After the 2003 US Invasion, some Iraqi militia groups emerged as resistance factions or “Special Groups” backed by Iran to fight U.S. and coalition forces especially after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Many of its Shiite factions fought American occupation forces after 2003.
The Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) formed in June 2014 after Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa calling on all Iraqis to defend the country as the national army collapsed and ISIS seized the city of Mosul.
The militias still exist now within the PMF, an umbrella union of roughly 50-to-70-armed factions and an estimated 110,000-130,000 fighters. The PMF has been officially absorbed into the Iraqi state and funded through its national budget.
The PMF is not monolithic. It splits into three broad strands: “Atabat” units loyal to Sistani and the Najaf seminary; a Sadrist current tracing to Muqtada al-Sadr’s old Mahdi Army; and the “waliyi” factions – built by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Quds Force and answering directly to Tehran’s supreme leader. The waliyi groups are Iran’s most important lever inside Iraq, and include Kataib Hezbollah, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Harakat al-Nujaba, Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, and the older Badr Organization, formed by Iranian officers during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war. Several of these factions also fight collectively under the banner “Islamic Resistance in Iraq,” a categorical label for patterned strikes on U.S. and Israeli-linked targets.
These militias are no longer just armed groups – they are a political machine. Factions tied to Kataib Hezbollah, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Badr, and Kataib Imam Ali hold a substantial share of the Shia Coordination Framework’s seats in parliament. The Coordination Framework swept Iraq’s November 2025 elections, taking more than 185 of 329 seats once allied factions were counted, and after a tense standoff over reinstating former premier Nouri al-Maliki – which Washington explicitly threatened to punish – parliament instead swore in Ali al-Zaidi as prime minister on May 14, 2026.
The Iraqi Parliament is now considering legislation to give the PMF permanent legal status, its own budget, and an independent command structure – a move critics warn would entrench a parallel army answerable more to Tehran than Baghdad. Analysts note the militias have built business networks and won government posts, embedding themselves in Iraq’s political, economic and social fabric.
Militarily, the factions have been active participants in Iran’s war against imperialism in Iran, not bystanders. On the war’s first day, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed 16 drone attacks on “enemy bases,” while the front group Saraya Awliya al-Dam struck near Erbil International Airport. Retaliation followed swiftly: Kataib Hezbollah’s security commander Abu Ali al-Askari was killed in a Baghdad airstrike on March 14, and PMF bases across Kirkuk, Nineveh, Anbar and Saladin provinces were bombarded – reportedly 165 times over 2026. A militia faction also kidnapped an American journalist in Baghdad. The deadliest single episode came on July 29, when U.S. and Saudi forces struck PMF sites across eight Iraqi governorates after drones launched from Iraq hit Saudi oil facilities, killing at least 20 fighters and wounding 32. Attacks continue in September, including a drone strike from Maysan governorate that forced Saudi Arabia to close a key export pipeline.
The Iraqi militias matter because they allow Iran to wage a multi-front war without further exposing its own territory, while Baghdad’s fragile government struggles to control factions that outgun much of the national army and openly defy government orders. Each unauthorized strike risks pulling Iraq – along with its oil infrastructure, airspace, and diplomatic relationships – deeper into a war fought largely on other countries’ soil. That makes these groups one of the biggest variables in whether the conflict remains contained or spreads further.
