Iraq Raids Iranian-Backed Militia Accused of Attacking U.S. Forces

Iraqi counterterrorism forces detained 14 members of the militia, including one man they said had been involved with previous rocket attacks and was believed to be planning another.

The armed groups, which were formed as volunteer militias to help fight the Islamic State in 2014, became national heroes in that war, which ended in 2018. Since then, many have proved an invaluable ballast to the government’s security forces, but a few have presented serious problems.

Of the more than 20 militias, only a handful have close ties to Iran. But those groups, including Khataib Hezbollah, have become the most powerful. Most have political wings in the Iraqi Parliament where they often push Iran’s interests.

Since 2017, the militias have been regularized and they now receive salaries, weapons and training from the Iraqi government.

They ostensibly report to the prime minister but in practice maintain a great deal of independence. The legal status of some of these groups is murky because they are at once part of the government’s security forces, but also flout Iraqi law.

Iran’s close ties to the militias as well as to Iraq’s previous political leaders inhibited efforts to move against the groups when they attacked Iraqi forces and the Green Zone. The powerlessness of the Iraqi government in the face of the Khataib Hezbollah was clear in January when several thousand militia members marched on the Green Zone after the United States bombed Khataib Hezbollah bases in western Iraq.

Members of the group vandalized the wall surrounding the U.S. Embassy and set fire to some of the embassy guard posts. The prime minister then, Adel Abdul Mahdi, was slow to use force to protect the embassy, and the militia members left only after he promised to push legislation expelling the American military.