🔸How did Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) turn into a battleground between Iran and the United States?

🔻A report by Danial Babayani

Joint attacks by the United States and Saudi Arabia on Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) positions in Iraq, and the killing of at least 20 members of this force, have once again turned the role of this military institution into one of Iraq’s most important security and political issues.

The PMF says that in these attacks, which targeted seven provinces of Iraq, in addition to at least 20 deaths, 32 others were also injured.

The Popular Mobilization Forces, or “Popular Mobilization Units,” were formed in the summer of 2014, after Mosul was taken by the Islamist militants of “ISIS.”

At that time, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the senior Shia clerical authority in Iraq, issued a fatwa known as “wajib kafai” (collective duty), calling on citizens who are able to carry weapons to join the security forces in order to confront ISIS.

The recent attacks by the United States and Saudi Arabia have once again raised the question of to what extent the PMF today is an official institution of the Iraqi government, and to what extent it is a set of armed groups—some of which have close ties with Iran.