Mysterious explosion highlights threats of Iraqi Shi'ite militias - analysis

• Published date: 21 April 2024
• Author: SETH J. FRANTZMAN
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

The site of the explosion is around 30 miles north of Baghdad. Members of the militias visited the site and investigated a large crater. The Iraqi authorities were investigating the incident but appeared to indicate that they did not detect any planes or drones in the area before the explosion

The message from Iraq, therefore, is to downplay the mysterious explosion. The Iranians also downplayed reports of an Israeli airstrike on Friday, April 19. This is message discipline in the Iranian camp. Iran wants to downplay any incidents that appear to be a setback for Iran or its proxies and allies. Nevertheless, experts who follow Iraq and open-source intelligence analysts have concluded that the explosion seems to have taken place where a container was located that may have housed munitions.

The question is, who are these Iraqi-based Iranian proxies and allies? The militias in Iraq have deep roots that are tied to Iran. For instance, the Badr Organization, which is linked to the militias, has its origins in 1980 when it was working alongside the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iraq in opposition to Saddam Hussein's regime. Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a leader of Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq, who was killed in 2020 by a US drone strike, also earned his spurs in the 1980s working with the Iranians. These groups are also tied to Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed groups in the region.

In the aftermath of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq

The Iranian-backed militias in Iraq grew after the US invasion of 2003. They benefited from the invasion and the fall of Saddam. Within a few years of 2003, they had grown exponentially and began to take on more official roles in Iraq because the militias were tied to political parties. In 2014, when ISIS invaded Iraq, the militias got another boost by a fatwa from Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who called on young men to go fight ISIS. The men were funneled into units by the militias, expanding their force to more than 100,000 men. When the war on ISIS was over, the militias were able to get official funding as a paramilitary organization. This cemented their official role.

As such, the militias were able to stockpile more weapons and control military compounds in an official capacity. For instance, the site called "Kalsu," north of Baghdad, where the explosion took place was formerly used by the US as a military base and then handed to the Iraqis, who let the militias use it.

In 2017, when ISIS was largely defeated in Iraq, the militias...