Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis

Overview

Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was an Iraqi militia commander whose career connected the Iranian regime’s armed network to positions of power within Iraq. He founded and led Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iraqi Shia terrorist militia, and became deputy commander and chief of staff of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). Although Falih al-Fayyadh was the PMF’s formal commander, al-Muhandis exercised greater operational power. He worked closely with Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Iranian regime’s Quds Force, on militia operations in Iraq and beyond.

Early life

Al-Muhandis, whose birth name was Jamal Jaafar Muhammad Ali al-Ibrahim, belonged to an Iraqi opposition network that developed close ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He went into exile in Iran in 1979 as a member of the outlawed Islamic Dawa Party. He later became a senior figure in the Iranian-backed Badr Organization, alongside commanders including Hadi al-Amiri. These relationships shaped his subsequent roles in militant activity and Iraqi politics.

Career

Al-Muhandis founded Kata’ib Hezbollah during the Iraq War and commanded it against American-led coalition forces. The Quds Force directed the militia, which received Iranian training and equipment. Its operations included attacks that killed American soldiers. Al-Muhandis retained close ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps while building his own armed organization within Iraq.

After the Islamic State seized large areas of Iraq in 2014, al-Muhandis rose within the PMF, the umbrella body that brought together numerous militias. As chief of staff, he directed its internal organization and order. Soleimani planned PMF combat operations against the Islamic State with him; the two appeared together in eastern Iraq in March 2015. By 2017, al-Muhandis was the PMF’s dominant military figure despite his formally subordinate position to al-Fayyadh. His authority also extended into local militia networks: Abu Ridha al-Najjar, longtime commander of the PMF Northern Axis, was his protégé, and the shrine-associated Liwa al-Tafuf came increasingly under his control.

Al-Muhandis defended the PMF’s access to state resources. During negotiations over Iraq’s 2016 budget, he and al-Amiri pressed Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to authorize a PMF budget of about $2 billion despite austerity cuts. Planned PMF salaries rose to 120,000. Their effort showed how militia leaders used political influence to secure public funding while retaining armed power.

Ideology and statements

Al-Muhandis promoted the PMF as a lasting force within Iraq and supported the Iranian regime’s regional strategy. At a radio and television conference in Mashhad, Iran, on July 2, 2017, he addressed the militias’ direction after the liberation of Mosul from the Islamic State. The course advanced by him and other PMF leaders sought influence along the Iraq–Syria border and an overland logistics route connecting Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut. In 2018, he publicly thanked Iran’s regime for weapons and money and the terrorist organization Hezbollah for training his fighters.

His position on PMF accountability became clear at a January 13, 2019, meeting. Iraqi interlocutors raised complaints about members expelled without cause and factional economic bodies operating in areas retaken from the Islamic State. Al-Muhandis treated those complaints as secondary to protecting the PMF. He vowed to prevent its dissolution, suspension or loss of funding, declared that his forces had developed and deployed missiles in western Iraq, and threatened retaliation if American forces struck the PMF.

Role in attacks or conflicts

In 1983, al-Muhandis participated in a coordinated series of terrorist attacks in Kuwait, including attacks on the American and French embassies. He acted within an Iranian-backed network serving Hezbollah in Lebanon. Kuwait subsequently sentenced him to death in absentia for his role in the attacks.

During the Iraq War, Kata’ib Hezbollah attacked American-led forces under his command. Its activity later extended across the border when Soleimani sent fighters from Iraq into Syria. Al-Muhandis and other senior PMF figures worked to expand Iranian influence along that border. In December 2019, days before his death, Kata’ib Hezbollah attacked a base in Kirkuk, killing an American contractor. The militia was also involved in the siege of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad that followed.

Death or current status

A U.S. drone strike near Baghdad airport killed al-Muhandis and Qasem Soleimani on January 3, 2020. The strike targeting Soleimani also removed al-Muhandis from the leadership of both Kata’ib Hezbollah and the PMF. In April 2020, Kata’ib Hezbollah announced an agreement with Iraqi prime minister-designate Mustafa al-Kazimi to form a committee examining their deaths.

Legacy

The deaths of Soleimani and al-Muhandis disrupted efforts to consolidate the PMF and sharpened competition among its factions. Kata’ib Hezbollah became less politically agile after its founder’s death, but remained central to organizing attacks on American forces as the Quds Force expanded its work with other Iraqi groups. Al-Muhandis’s image appeared in streets, parks and government offices as Iran-aligned factions promoted him as a national hero.

That image also became a recruitment tool. The Sons of al-Muhandis Group entered Iraqi universities and colleges to attract young supporters to armed militias and Wilayat al-Faqih, Iran’s governing model. In 2022, higher education minister Naeem al-Aboudi supplied the group with government cover and financial and political support. After Iraq formed a government that year, it established a public construction and industry company named for al-Muhandis. The company received government land, other assets and an annual budget of tens of millions of dollars, providing an income channel for PMF militias. His place in the Iranian regime’s Iraqi network remained visible in 2023, when Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani visited al-Muhandis’s memorial in Baghdad and his grave in Najaf.