Will Iraq integrate the Popular Mobilization Forces into the state?
On July 27, two brigades from the mostly Shia Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) stormed the Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture, clashing with police.
While the incident could be seen as a power struggle for position, it also indicates a certain degree of daring on the part of the brigades, which ended up killing a police officer.The brigades were called in by Ayad Kadhim Ali after he was dismissed as the head of the ministry’s office in Baghdad’s Karkh district, according to Mehmet Alaca, an expert on Iraq’s Shia militias. Ali is affiliated with Kataib Hezbollah, as are the brigades that attacked the ministry, analysts told Al Jazeera.
The incident is seen as a litmus test of whether the Iraqi state can hold PMF factions accountable for breaking the law.
Iraq’s government argues that passing a new legislation – which would fully integrate the PMF into the state – would help them do so. Proponents of the bill argue it would incentivise the PMF to act within the confines of the law, but detractors fear it would give legal cover to militias, which are already too strong.
The PMF
The PMF, also known as al-Hashd al-Shaabi, is an umbrella organisation of mostly Shia armed groups, some of whom have close ties to neighbouring Iran. A few of these groups first emerged during the Iraqi resistance to US occupation.
Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, for instance, split from Jaish al-Mahdi, formerly the dominant arm of the Shia rebellion, in 2007. The group received Iranian support to become a major powerbroker in Iraq and later intervened in Syria’s civil war to support then-President Bashar al-Assad as he tried to crush a popular rebellion.Kataib Imam Ali is another, albeit smaller, group in the PMF that reportedly received training from the Lebanese group Hezbollah in Iran and also dispatched fighters to Syria during the height of its war.
Like Kataib Imam Ali, most PMF factions were formed after Iraqi Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa in 2014, urging all able-bodied men to join the state to defend Iraq from ISIL (ISIS).At the time, ISIL controlled large swaths of territory across Syria and Iraq, equivalent to the size of England. ISIL even captured the Iraqi city of Mosul and declared a “caliphate” from there.
By 2016, Iraq’s parliament had passed a law that recognised the PMF as a component of the state’s national security.
But the law lacks clarity around command and control and budgetary oversight, and it has failed to prevent some groups from taking unilateral action to attack United States assets and soldiers stationed in the country.In 2024, for instance, the PMF was awarded a budget of $3.4bn, which exceeded the total budget of Lebanon.
While the figure is small relative to the $21.1bn allocated to Iraq’s Ministry of Defence that same year, it is a sizeable amount that the state allocated to a body that it did not even have an accurate membership list for.
Each registered PMF faction submits a list of names to be paid, and these lists are then reviewed by the Ministry of Finance. However, PMF leaders often intervene to push payments through unchallenged, according to a 2021 report by the Chatham House think tank.
Estimates suggested there are 238,000 PMF fighters.
Receiving a share of the state budget has helped the PMF in its quest to brand itself as a legitimate entity in Iraq.
“From the beginning, the PMF was adamant that it was part of the state and not a militia,” said Renad Mansour, an expert on Iraq with Chatham House.
Over the past 10 years, PMF factions have created political wings, run in parliamentary elections and gained access to lucrative state money after securing important administrative positions in key ministries.
Yet as they accrued power, some used their arms against the state to safeguard their patronage networks and influence over key ministries.
