Hashd al-Shaabi

Iran’s defense chief on Thursday reportedly urged for boosting military and defense ties with Iraq, home to anti-U.S. Shiite militias loyal to Tehran and about 5,000 American service members.

A top Iranian president aide called U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton “the mustache” this week, declaring he is pushing American President Donald Trump into “war” with Iran.

Baghdad repudiated recent Iraqi media reports claiming U.S. warplanes launched lethal airstrikes in Anbar province against an Iraqi-sanctioned umbrella organization for mainly Shiite militias backed by Iran, Bas News reported Monday.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s National Security Council (NSC), led by John Bolton, urged the Pentagon to provide the White House with military options to strike Iran after attacks in September 2018 near U.S. assets in Iraq believed to be carried out by Tehran-allied Shiite militias, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Sunday.

Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Iraq, angered by U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement during his recent visit to the country that United States troops will remain there, renewed threats against American service members in recent days.

Baghdad and Kurdish leaders have ordered the removal of Iran-backed Shiite militias from Kirkuk and the return of the oil-rich city to the control of the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Rudaw reported Thursday.

Iraq has reappointed the former chief of the Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) to his dual posts as chairman of the Shiite militias and national security adviser to the prime minister, the Associated Press (AP) reported Tuesday, noting that the Tehran-allied militiaman has also been nominated to head the country’s powerful interior ministry.

State sponsor of terrorism Iran is providing “ballistic missiles” to Tehran-allied Shiite militia groups in Iraq, a top U.S. Department of State (DOS) official declared Thursday.

The U.S. military’s mission in Iraq does not involve taking action against the threat posed by the Baghdad-sanctioned umbrella organization of mostly Shiite fighters known as the Popular Mobilization Forces/Units (PMF/PMU) and other Iran-backed militias, Breitbart News learned from the Pentagon.

The war in Iraq has made for some strange bedfellows, namely ex-Sunni Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) fighters and the Baghdad-sponsored organization of mostly Iran-allied Shiite militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), Foreign Policy (FP) reported this week.

Members of Iraq’s Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF/PMU) confirmed on Monday that Islamic State terrorists killed “at least 27” of their fighters and kidnapped about two dozen more near Kirkuk, a city the PMF invaded and conquered late last year.

Health personnel in Iraq’s Diyala province rushed more than 100 Shiite militiamen from a Baghdad-sanctioned group backed by Iran to the hospital after they reportedly ate poisoned food at an Iraqi restaurant.

Tensions between Kurds and Iranian-backed Shiite militias sanctioned by Baghdad continue to intensify in northern Iraq, prompting young Kurdish men to fight back “the bullies” with RPGs and machine guns in the latest incident in a wave of clashes between the two groups, reports Kurdistan24.

Contents: Done with Mosul, Iraqi forces begin operation to eject ISIS from Tal Afar; Turkey warns of sectarian war following battle of Tal Afar; President Trump to announce US strategy in Afghanistan

Many members of the Yazidi minority group in northern Iraq who had been recruited by the U..S.-designated terror group Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to defend their territory against the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) are now joining an Iran-allied Shiite paramilitary group trying to capture more territory in the war-ravaged Middle Eastern country.

The United States and its allies are expected to send more weapons to anti-Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad rebels to try to repel a new push to open a supply route between Iraq and Syria by Iran-allied Shiite militias fighting alongside local fighters.

Iran-backed Shiite paramilitary troops, sanctioned by Baghdad, say they have pushed the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) out of several villages west of Mosul, advancing further towards Iraq’s border with Syria.

Concerns are growing amongst Iraqi Kurdish officials over the presence of Shiite-majority Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitaries in Northern Iraq where many territories remain controlled by the Islamic State.

Arab leaders in northern Iraq’s Sunni-majority Nineveh province have called on the international community to keep Iran-allied Shiite fighters, such as members of the Baghdad-sanctioned Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), out of the provincial capital of Mosul and its surrounding areas.

A group affiliated with a predominantly Shiite paramilitary force backed by Iran and legally operating as a component of the Iraqi military has reportedly bombed Kurdish Peshmerga positions in northern Iraq’s Sinjar region, Rudaw reports.

Fighters from the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), an Iraqi state-sponsored umbrella organization of mostly Iran-allied Shiite militias, have established a presence in northern Iraq’s Kurdish region with the ultimate purpose of erecting a base there, Rudaw has learned from the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).

Contents: Shia militias in Iraq may or may not be attacking Tal Afar near Mosul; ISIS using tens of thousands of men, women and children as human shields in Mosul; Conflicts among ethnic groups lead to chaos in Mosul operation

Shiite militias in Iraq, many of them backed by state sponsor of terror Iran, have been accused of torturing “hundreds” of Sunni civilians captured during the ongoing battle to retake Fallujah from the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).

The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) repelled an offensive launched by Shiite militiamen, many of them backed by Iran, to recapture the village of Bashir south of northern Iraq’s Kirkuk, Kurdish media outlet Rudaw reports.

The Popular Mobilization Units (Hashd al-Shaabi), a Shiite militia movement in Iraq, has continued to attack Kurdish territory in an attempt to push back Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and take full control of the area, reports BasNews.

Eight-hundred Middle East Christians have volunteered to join the Hashd al-Shaabi Shiite militias, known in English as the Popular Mobilization Units, the Iraqi Al Mada reported Sunday.