In May, Hassan Fada’am traded his military fatigues for a suit when he became one of 45 men from Shiite factions elected to Iraq’s 329-seat parliament. Fada’am was trained in Iran and fought against ISIS in Iraq. Now he’s a politician as paramilitary groups backed by Iran have doubled their number of seats in Iraq’s parliament. The "Fatih" Alliance bloc that represents them has become the second largest political bloc. In interviews, eight men from factions who have translated their battlefield success into electoral victories set out how they plan to use this new platform.
Factions today are better placed than ever to influence policies, from domestic security to foreign policy. However, former prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, said he fears the factions will undermine efforts to unify Iraq. Iraq's young democracy is trying to balance the demands of its Sunnis, Kurds and Shi’ites after years of sectarian conflict, and the economy is only beginning to recover from the country’s war with ISIS. Abadi tried, unsuccessfully, to prevent factions' leaders from standing in the 2018 election. “How can a military outfit have a political opinion? This does not happen in any part of the world.
It is prohibited,” he said at the time. The factions men responded by announcing they would quit their military roles to comply with Iraq’s electoral code. Some in Washington are also worried. Republican senators have introduced a bill that would impose sanctions on two Iranian-backed factions in Iraq, Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Harakat al Nujaba. Sponsors of the (Iranian Proxies Sanctions Act) include Senators David Perdue, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.
Iran is unperturbed. “In the meetings we had with our Iraqi brothers, they assured us that Iraq could not be used by America,” said a former Iranian ambassador in the region, now a senior official in Tehran. Among Iran’s Iraqi allies is the Badr Organization, which won 21 seats at the election.
For two decades, Badr’s leader Hadi al-Amiri led the fight against Saddam Hussein from exile in Iran. A Badr local commander, Karim Nouri, said communication with Iran was ongoing. He did not elaborate, Reuters reported.
Hisham Hashemi, a security adviser to Iraq’s government said he believed that "Iran was in touch with Shiite politicians." When Iraq’s top Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani urged his fellow Shiites to join the fight against ISIS in 2014, Fada’am was among the tens of thousands of Shiites who answered the call. He led the Dawn Brigades, a force of 3,400 fighters. After driving ISIS from the town of Jurf al-Sakhr south of Baghdad, Fada’am lobbied the local government in his province of Hilla to cancel the property rights of Sunnis in the area, saying they were tied to "ISIS".
The Hilla provincial council agreed to his request. Across town from his office is a hospital run by Fada’am followers. It provides free medical care for factions' fighters and members of the public. Patients have access to an orderly, well stocked pharmacy.
The rooms are cleaner than most medical facilities in Iraq. “At the end of the day we must switch to politics to rebuild our country. Rebuilding the country and maintaining its security could come only through good politics,” said Fada’am, according to Reuters.
Also, Some Iraqi politicians and military officers worry that through the Shiite factions Iran is trying to create an Iraqi version of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, with its parallel security apparatus and vast business empire. Iraqi militias have shares in construction, trade and car import companies.
At the Safra border crossing, 90 km north of Baghdad, the "Badr Organisation", Iran’s closest paramilitary partner in Iraq, collects custom tariffs and taxes on goods transported from the Kurdish region in the north, according to a local councillor and two former senior Iraqi officials. The councillor said at least $12 to $15 million goes to the Badr group each month.
Local Badr commander, Imad Jafaar, denied the group was using the crossing to generate funds.
