Coronavirus, Sanctions Hit Iran’s Support of Iraq Proxies

A PMF member in Iraq. Reuters file photo
A PMF member in Iraq. Reuters file photo
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Coronavirus, Sanctions Hit Iran’s Support of Iraq Proxies

A PMF member in Iraq. Reuters file photo
A PMF member in Iraq. Reuters file photo

Iran’s financial and military support for its proxy paramilitary groups in Iraq, a linchpin of its regional foreign policy, has been dramatically disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic and US sanctions, according to people familiar with the matter.

Interruptions caused by the virus, including border closings to prevent the spread of the disease, have drastically cut Tehran’s cash supplies to the militia groups in recent months, said three Iraqi paramilitary group commanders and a regional official familiar with Iran’s activities in Iraq.

The funds from Iran are typically allocated for military operations related to the paramilitary groups’ activities such as fighting Iran’s opponents, including attacks against US targets, the three commanders said.

Since the coronavirus hit earlier this year, Iran has reduced its monthly payments to each of the four top militia groups in Iraq to between $2 million and $3 million from $4.5 million to $5 million, said one of the commanders, who belongs to a powerful paramilitary group.

The reduced funding has impacted operations of the militia groups and is forcing them to seek alternative sources of funding for military operations and weapons such as from their own business interests, the commanders said.

Iraq shares a border with Iran, a coronavirus epicenter in the Middle East with more than 11,000 reported deaths, according to a Reuters tally.

Disruptions brought on by the pandemic come on top of a squeeze on Tehran’s financing of the paramilitary groups over the past two years caused by US sanctions on Iran, said the three commanders and the regional official.

The regional official said Tehran’s funding of the groups has dropped by millions of dollars. The sanctions combined with the coronavirus crisis and a decline in oil prices have helped force Iran, which faces a large budget deficit, to limit its military spending including on the Revolutionary Guards.

US Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook agreed that US sanctions were having an impact on Iran’s funding of paramilitary groups, saying it was "further evidence that our campaign of maximum pressure is successfully depriving the (Iranian) regime of revenue to fund its terror proxies and other destabilizing actions across the region."

The squeeze on militia financing also follows the killing of Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani, who died in a US drone strike in Baghdad in January. The loss of the senior military commander, who created an Iran-aligned axis of influence across the Middle East and steered political allies in Iraq, has dealt a blow to the operations of paramilitary groups and Iran’s broader aims in Iraq, according to the three commanders as well as the regional official and a senior Iranian diplomat.

The Iran-backed paramilitary groups helped the Iraqi government defeat ISIS in 2017. They have dominated the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an Iraqi state-controlled institution that is an umbrella grouping of militias, including and smaller Shiite groups that object to Iranian dominance. The PMF was formally integrated into Iraq’s armed forces and has led many security operations.

A PMF spokesman, Muhannad al-Aqabi, declined to comment on any issues to do with groups backed directly by Iran. The PMF receives funding and equipment through official channels via the Iraqi state, even if the ultimate source of the money is often Iran, Aqabi said.

A spokesman at the public relations office of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps denied that Iran finances the militias.

“Iran has always supported the oppressed people in the region and beyond and our policy has not changed. But we do not provide financial support to those who fight against America’s hegemony in our region.”

When asked by Reuters whether Iran’s financial and military support of Iraqi paramilitaries had declined, Alireza Miryousefi, a spokesman for Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York, said: “These rumors are designed to sow discord between the two nations and are doomed to fail.”

He added that Iran is “fully supportive” of the Iraqi government and that the two countries “engage closely in all matters of mutual interest” but that Iran doesn’t interfere in its neighbor's internal affairs.



UN-backed Team Focusing on Human Rights in Palestinian Areas Announce Resignations

Chair of the Commission Navi Pillay delivers her statement of the report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, during the 56th session of the Human Rights Council, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, June 19, 2024. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP, File)
Chair of the Commission Navi Pillay delivers her statement of the report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, during the 56th session of the Human Rights Council, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, June 19, 2024. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP, File)
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UN-backed Team Focusing on Human Rights in Palestinian Areas Announce Resignations

Chair of the Commission Navi Pillay delivers her statement of the report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, during the 56th session of the Human Rights Council, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, June 19, 2024. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP, File)
Chair of the Commission Navi Pillay delivers her statement of the report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, during the 56th session of the Human Rights Council, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, June 19, 2024. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP, File)

A team of three independent experts working for the UN's top human rights body with a focus on Israel and Palestinian areas say they are resigning, citing personal reasons and a need for change, in the panel's first such group resignation.

The resignations, announced Monday by the UN-backed Human Rights Council that set up the team, come as violence continues in Palestinian areas with few signs of letup in the Israeli military campaign against Hamas and other militants behind the Oct. 7 attacks.

The Israeli government has repeatedly criticized the panel of experts, known as the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel, and denied their repeated requests to travel to the region or otherwise cooperate with the team, The AP news reported.

Council spokesman Pascal Sim said the move marked the first joint resignations of Commission of Inquiry members since the council was founded in 2006. The team said in a statement that the resignations had “absolutely nothing to do with any external event or pressure," while also saying they provided a good opportunity to reconstitute the panel.

Navi Pillay, 83, a former UN human rights chief who has led the commission for the last four years, said in a letter to the council president that she was resigning effective Nov. 3 because of “age, medical issues and the weight of several other commitments.”

In an interview, Pillay rejected accusations from critics who accused her of antisemitism or turning a blind eye to the Hamas attacks. She recalled how she worked closely with some Jewish lawyers in the fight against apartheid in her native South Africa and was invited to Israel as the UN rights chief from 2008 to 2014.

"Name-calling is not affecting me in any way,” she said by phone. “We have striven to remain independent. That’s what we are. We’re an independent panel. We don’t take sides ... We look at the evidence and see the direction it’s taking us.”

“People who accuse us of being anti-Semitic ... they twist the facts, they invent facts, falsify facts. I would like to see them challenge the report: Which of the facts that we have set out are incorrect?” she said.

Her commission condemned the Oct. 7 attacks three days afterward in a news release that said at the time that reports "that armed groups from Gaza have gunned down hundreds of unarmed civilians are abhorrent and cannot be tolerated. Taking civilian hostages and using civilians as human shields are war crimes.”

She expressed regret that Israel didn't allow the commission access to Israel or Palestinian areas, saying "I feel that’s an injustice to Israeli Jews because we’re not taking on board their opinion or what they’re saying.”

Pillay said she had been recently diagnosed with low platelet count and her condition has restricted her ability to travel.

Her team said it wanted to give the rights council's president — currently Ambassador Jürg Lauber of Switzerland — the ability to pick new members.

Team member Chris Sidoti said Pillay's retirement marked “an appropriate time to re-constitute the commission.” The third member, Miloon Kothari, did not provide his reasons in a letter announcing his resignation effective 0ct. 31.

Neither the independent experts nor the council have any power over countries, but aim to spotlight rights abuses and collect information about suspected perpetrators that could be used by the International Criminal Court or other courts focusing on international justice.

The letters were sent to the council president last week but only became public Monday.

Last week, the US government announced sanctions against another independent expert mandated by the council, Francesca Albanese, who has also focused on Israel and the Palestinians. Albanese has accused Israel of genocide against the Palestinians, a claim Israel has denied.

Albanese said in an interview last week with The Associated Press that she was shocked by the US decision. She has not resigned.