Popular Mobilization Forces

Overview

The Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), also known as the Hashd al-Shaabi, are an umbrella for numerous armed groups in Iraq. They emerged during the emergency caused by the Islamic State’s advance in 2014 and became an official Iraqi security institution. Their formal chain of command leads to Iraq’s prime minister, and their personnel receive state salaries. Their constituent groups, however, differ in origin, leadership and allegiance. Several powerful factions maintain close ties to the regime in Iran and operate with greater autonomy than their formal Iraqi status suggests.

The PMF’s record combines a substantial contribution to the campaign against the Islamic State with continuing disputes over state authority and civilian security. Its forces fought in major operations and guarded routes, shrines and areas behind the front. Its leading Iran-aligned factions also gained territory, public funds and political influence. Iraqi officials and residents have challenged the continued presence of particular brigades in cities and minority communities after their liberation. The central question in those disputes is whether armed personnel drawing Iraqi state pay can be made accountable to Iraqi civilian authority and military regulations.

Founding and ideology

The Islamic State’s 2014 conquests exposed the Iraqi army’s inability to stop its advance. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called on Iraqis to defend the country, its people and its sacred places. Volunteers mobilized alongside existing armed organizations, and an Iraqi government commission gave the new force an institutional framework. The mobilization was broader than any single militia or religious faction. Although predominantly Shia, the PMF also incorporated Sunni Arab, Yazidi, Christian and other minority units, many of which operated near their home regions.

Some of the strongest constituent organizations preceded the 2014 mobilization. Kata’ib Hezbollah and Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq had fought U.S. forces during the Iraq War and received Iranian backing. Badr Organization, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada became other important components. Kata’ib Hezbollah, Nujaba, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq and related groups supplied much of the PMF’s combat strength. Their political and religious commitments differ from those of units associated with al-Sistani and the shrines of Najaf and Karbala. The PMF therefore has no single ideology applicable to every brigade.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) cultivated ties with several PMF factions. For those units, Iraqi state membership did not replace Iranian training, patronage or operational influence. Al-Sistani’s call to defend Iraq likewise did not authorize permanent armed independence from the state. These different origins explain why arguments over the PMF’s wartime legitimacy later became arguments over its command, funding and postwar purpose.

History

PMF forces under leaders including Hadi al-Amiri helped protect Samarra and clear Islamic State forces from large parts of Diyala. Shia PMF elements participated in the prolonged siege of Fallujah before the 2016 assault. During the campaign to retake Mosul, Iraqi forces and Kurdish Peshmerga led the advance with support from Shia militias, Sunni tribesmen and aircraft of the American-led coalition. PMF formations served combat, security and rear-area roles. As the Battle of Mosul (2016–2017) neared its end, Iran-aligned formations also advanced westward toward the Iraq–Syria border and al-Qaim. Their territorial gains raised questions extending beyond the defeat of the Islamic State, which retained the ability to attack after losing Mosul.

Iraq’s parliament gave the mobilization a statutory place in the armed forces in 2016. That decision secured an official role for fighters recruited during the national emergency, but also gave long-established militias a route to state salaries and durable institutional power. In December 2017, al-Sistani called for PMF personnel to be integrated into Iraq’s military and security institutions. His position recognized their service against the Islamic State while insisting that armed groups operate under state command. Shrine units aligned with his religious leadership resisted domination by pro-Iran factions and sought closer alignment with Iraq’s national army.

Control of liberated territory remained contentious. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi at one stage directed PMF forces to remain in recaptured cities despite an order from Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis to withdraw headquarters from them. Al-Abadi later ordered PMF units out of Mosul and the Nineveh Plains and under the army-led Nineveh Operations Command on August 2, 2018. Prime Minister Adel Abd’al-Mahdi reiterated that direction in March 2019; by July, it had not been carried out. The conflicting decisions and incomplete implementation showed how difficult it was for Iraqi authorities to establish consistent control on the ground.

Following the 2017 Kurdistan Region independence referendum, Iraqi federal forces and PMF units entered Kirkuk after Qasem Soleimani, commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force, helped arrange a Peshmerga withdrawal. Reports of abuses involving security forces, including PMF affiliates, accompanied the federal return to disputed areas. In 2018, Iran-aligned PMF groups were reported to have arbitrarily or unlawfully detained Kurds and Turkmens in Kirkuk. Residents of villages around Zummar fled as armed forces advanced. These events linked the struggle over federal authority to the question of Iranian influence within forces operating under Iraq’s flag.

Structure and leadership

The PMF’s official command runs through its commission to Iraq’s prime minister. Falih al-Fayyadh has served as its formal chairman. By 2017, however, al-Muhandis was its dominant military figure and exercised greater operational power. A Kata’ib Hezbollah founder with longstanding IRGC ties, he used his position to strengthen militia command networks within the state-funded institution. Badr leader al-Amiri also combined battlefield authority with substantial political influence. Their roles made PMF leadership part of Iraq’s wider contest over ministries, budgets and security policy.

Formal rank does not reliably describe command over every brigade. In 2020, Iraqi civilian authorities lacked effective control over certain Iran-aligned PMF units and the Popular Mobilization Committee. Kata’ib Hezbollah personnel received Iraqi government pay while taking part in operations in Syria that the PMF had no Iraqi authorization to conduct. Their Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps ties exemplified the gap between an official reporting line and practical operational control. The same distinction applies when assessing other factions that invoke PMF state status while resisting government direction.

The organization also includes units with different loyalties. Shrine formations associated with al-Sistani and Najaf have resisted pro-Iran dominance. Liwa al-Tafuf, formed in 2014 by commanders who split from a Sistani-loyal brigade, initially drew authority from Karbala’s shrines but increasingly came under al-Muhandis’s control. Its path illustrates why a unit’s origins alone do not establish its later allegiance. The killings of al-Muhandis and Soleimani in a U.S. strike in January 2020 disrupted efforts to consolidate the PMF and intensified competition among its militias.

Funding and sponsors

Iraq pays PMF salaries and has progressively strengthened the organization’s legal and financial position. During negotiations over the 2016 budget, al-Amiri and al-Muhandis pressed Prime Minister al-Abadi to authorize approximately $2 billion for the PMF despite austerity measures. Planned salaries covered 120,000 personnel. These resources supported fighters who had answered a national call, while also giving factional leaders enduring leverage over state spending. Al-Muhandis opposed reductions to PMF funding even as complaints about expulsions and factional economic activity remained unresolved.

Iran’s regime has separately supplied patronage and influence to prominent constituent militias. Its IRGC relationships predated the PMF and continued after those groups entered Iraq’s formal security structure. Iran-aligned factions used their military position, affiliated parties and access to public institutions to shape Iraqi decisions. Their influence did not make every PMF brigade an Iranian proxy, but it limited the Iraqi government’s ability to treat the force as a unified body under effective civilian command.

After Iraq’s government was formed in 2022, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani’s administration authorized a state-owned construction and industry company named for al-Muhandis. It received government land, other assets and an annual budget measured in tens of millions of dollars. Intended to undertake infrastructure projects and generate income, the company expanded the PMF’s economic position beyond military salaries. Al-Sudani’s governing coalition depended on factions aligned with Iran, and his government offered militia-linked actors appointments as well as this commercial role. The arrangement deepened concern that institutions nominally serving the Iraqi state could also sustain armed factions with separate command networks.

Attacks and operations

The PMF’s campaign against the Islamic State included holding ground, protecting Samarra and pilgrimage routes, clearing territory and supporting larger Iraqi operations. Its formations reached the Iraq–Syria border west of Sinjar during the final phase of the Mosul campaign. Along that border, Iran-aligned components coordinated with pro-Iran forces across Syria. PMF and Kata’ib Hezbollah commands initially accommodated fighters from Liwa Fatemiyoun and Liwa Zainabiyoun at al-Qaim; Zainabiyoun fighters were later moved to PMF camps elsewhere in Iraq. Such cross-border activity extended the significance of PMF-held territory well beyond the domestic campaign against the Islamic State.

Some PMF positions became sites for Iranian weapons infrastructure. In 2019, Iranian missiles were stored in PMF weapons depots in Iraq, and facilities for assembling advanced weapons had been built there. Attacks or explosions struck PMF-held bases at Amerli, Camp Ashraf, Saqr and near Balad air base between July 19 and August 20 of that year. Reports attributed the Balad-area strike to Israel. The episode highlighted the danger that Iranian military activity based at Iraqi facilities posed to Iraq’s sovereignty and regional security.

After January 2020, Iranian-backed PMF factions including Kata’ib Hezbollah, Nujaba and Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq carried out more than 180 rocket, missile and drone attacks targeting U.S. personnel in Iraq, Syria and Jordan. Their actions cannot be treated as operations authorized by every PMF unit merely because the attackers belong to the same umbrella institution. Iraqi Prime Minister al-Sudani condemned militia attacks on U.S. forces as infringements of Iraqi sovereignty, while his government struggled to stop them. Following the October 2023 escalation in the region, Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada was among PMF groups involved in the Axis of Resistance network, and Iran-aligned militias in Iraq also targeted Israel.

PMF deployments have affected civilians in liberated areas. In the Nineveh Plains, residents challenged militia checkpoints and intimidation that impeded resettlement. The Babylon Brigades, despite their Chaldean Catholic founder, comprised mostly Shia fighters, including many from outside the area. The United States sanctioned their founder, Rayan al-Kildani, in 2019 for torture and looting Christian homes in Batnaya. It also sanctioned Waad Qado, leader of the PMF’s 30th Brigade, for extortion, kidnapping and illegal arrests. In Sinjar, PMF formations operated alongside competing armed groups; an Imam Ali Brigade unit blocked the Yazidi district council and mayor from returning in 2019. PMF militias, Kurdistan Workers’ Party affiliates and Turkish airstrikes continued to obstruct displaced residents’ return in 2022.

Designations and international status

The PMF as a whole is an official Iraqi security institution, not a single organization carrying one international terrorist designation. Legal and sanctions decisions concerning it therefore require attention to specific constituent groups and leaders. The United States has designated Kata’ib Hezbollah and al-Muhandis, and has sanctioned other PMF figures for abuses. Membership in the PMF did not cancel those measures or make every action by a designated faction an Iraqi government operation.

The PMF’s international significance comes from this overlap of state status, autonomous militia activity and Iranian influence. Its units receive Iraqi public money and can operate at state facilities, while certain leaders maintain relationships with the IRGC and pursue objectives beyond Iraqi government policy. In 2025, chairman Fayyadh met senior Iranian security officials in Tehran and Baghdad. These contacts were consistent with continued security ties, but did not establish that all PMF formations shared a single external command. Iraqi accountability depends on identifying the brigade, commander and actual authority behind each operation.

Current status

The PMF remains embedded in Iraq’s security and political system. Its legal standing, salaries, territorial positions and state-backed business interests make wholesale demobilization difficult. At the same time, the continued activity of Iran-aligned factions leaves unresolved the distinction between formal prime-ministerial authority and effective control. Al-Sistani’s demand for integration under army regulations, and local calls for police to replace PMF brigades, remain central to the debate over its future.

That debate extends to minority communities, border security and Iraq’s relations with its neighbors. Armed competition in Sinjar and the Nineveh Plains has impeded returns after the Islamic State’s defeat. Iran-aligned factions have attacked U.S. personnel and Israel while retaining positions in an Iraqi state institution. Other PMF units have sought closer ties to the national army. The organization’s wartime service remains part of its history, but its long-term role depends on whether Iraq can enforce a common chain of command, protect civilians and hold individual factions accountable for conduct outside the law.