Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF)

Overview

Quwwāt al-Ḥashd ash-Shaʿbī (قوات الحشد الشعبي), also known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), is a paramilitary umbrella organization in Iraq that was officially established in 2014 as a consequence of the collapse of the official Iraqi army (Rudolf, 2020) to combat the ISIS insurgency that was sweeping the country (El-Dessouki, 2017). Within the PMF, several militias operate based on sectarian, religious, and political affiliations. Despite the defeat of the parastatal form of the Islamic State in Iraq in 2018, the PMF remains largely active in the country, contributing to tensions and security issues within Iraqi society. The PMF is not a unitary phenomenon; rather, it fully reflects the hybrid nature of Iraqi reality. The binary opposition between concepts such as state and non-state, formal and informal, and national and transnational fails to effectively capture the complexities of security and political issues within Iraqi society. (Haddad, 2020).

History and Foundation

Besides most observers recalling the organization’s origin to the Daesh counter-insurgency period, PMF emerged significantly earlier, during the second term office of Prime Minister Maliki (2006-2010 and 2010-2014), whose legitimacy is highly debated (Haddad, 2020). In 2010, Maliki’s National Coalition, the Shi’ite coalition supported by the U.S. and backed by Iran, managed to secure the electoral victory. The country knew a vigorous shift toward authoritarianism and centralization that led in late 2012 to mass protests in the Sunni governorates. In this context of sectarian tensions and instability, Maliki pushed for the formation of paramilitary irregular forces tied to himself, following Saddam Hussein’s Fedayeen examples (Haddad, 2020). 

When in June of 2014 most of international coalitions were failing to counter the Islamic State insurrection in the Levant, the major Shi’ite religious leader of Iraq, the Grand Ayatollah and marja’ Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa, an Islamic legal ruling, to contrast ISIS (El-Dessouki, 2017). As a response to this fatwa, called “The collective duty of Jihad”, the PMF was formally recognized (Al-Jbour, 2021). According to al-Sistani’s call to action, all Iraqi citizens able to fight should take up arms and face ISIS’ threat. Even if the PMF predates Sistani’s edict, today’s PMF is a direct product of the fatwa, which provided social, political, and religious legitimization to a pre-existing organization that used this political capital for further institutionalization. Sistani triggered a chain reaction that made the PMF mainstream and expanded the hybridity of the Iraqi state (Haddad, 2020). 

At the time, the Islamic State had taken over Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq, and was committing a wide range of war crimes, including sectarian mass killings and bombings of Shi’ite religious sites. Furthermore, the fatwa did not allow the creation of autonomous armed groups; all volunteers had to be organized and incorporated within the legal framework of Iraq's official army and security forces. The groups under the PMF umbrella successfully coordinated with the Iraqi army and Kurdish Peshmerga to halt ISIS’s offensive toward Baghdad and to confront the Daesh threat in the Diyala, Babil, and Salah al-Din provinces (El-Dessouki, 2017). With the liberation of ISIS-controlled areas in 2017, the PMF received material and political support from government branches. Iranian-backed PMF factions used this new legitimization to pursue their aims, such as supporting the establishment of the new Tehran-Beirut corridor. After Daesh's defeat, many volunteers laid down their arms and returned home, as the purpose of the fatwa seemed fulfilled. Nonetheless, some of them remained active. Over the years, the PMF has undergone several attempts at reform and reorganization of its status within the Iraqi state, emerging during times when authorities were weak and unable to manage the country’s security and military issues (El-Dessouki, 2017). 

On the 2nd of January 2022, following U.S. President Donald Trump’s authorisation, an airstrike targeted the convoy of Iranian Quds Forces Major General Qasem Soleimani near Bagdad airport. The assassination of Soleimani had as a collateral of beneficial damage the death of one of the highest-ranking security officials of Iraq, the Chief of Staff of PMF Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis (Rudolf, 2020). Since October 2023, following Hamas’s attack in southern Israel, a new group called the Islamic Resistance of Iraq has emerged from Telegram communications and propaganda. This umbrella group includes various prominent Iranian-backed Iraqi militias that were already part of the PMF, such as Kata’ib Hezbollah, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, and Ansar Allah al-Awfiya (Malik & Knights, 2024). These groups focus on both national and transnational rocket and missile attacks, targeting Israel and U.S. facilities in Iraq and Syria (Menmy, 2023).

Objectives and Ideology

The PMF has become a hybrid entity within a hybrid state context, existing and operating in undefined areas with blurred boundaries. The organization is neither fully autonomous nor completely integrated into existing institutions, nor is it part of the Iraqi armed forces or an Iranian proxy. It’s important to consider the main ideological and organizational divisions within the so-called PMF (Haddad, 2020).

Most PMF factions and key leaders are officially and ideologically connected to the Islamic Republic of Iran, promoting its role as the defender of Shi’ite Islamic identity and its pan-Shiism. Many Shi’ite factions incorporated within the PMF have declared their loyalty to Iranian religious and political authority in a bid to establish a Shi’ite Islamic Republic of Iraq (El-Dessouki, 2017). The PMF faces two potential models: the Lebanese Hezbollah model, which entails controlling Iraqi institutions without destroying them, or the IRGC model, its source of inspiration and dominant military institution with crucial political, economic, and cultural influence in Iran and in the region (El-Dessouki, 2017).

Military and Political Abilities

PMF includes large, medium, and small-scale armed groups, some already active before the organization’s official foundation. Considering both operatives and logistical staff, the organizations count approximately 164 thousand members. At the time of ISIS’ defeat in 2018, the members were divided into 67 Shi’ite factions, 43 Sunni factions, and nine factions representing the several different ethnic groups in Iraq, like Turkmens, Kurds, Christian Babylon, Yazidi, and Shabak (Chamoun, 2020).

In 2020, Iranian-aligned factions occupied 80% of organizational and administrative leadership positions, excluding Sunni and minority factions from the entireness of high or middle-level roles within the administrative structure of PMF (Al-Jbour, 2021). More powerful actors and factions correspond to the political elite, and they play a key role in electoral competition and the economy. (Haddad, 2020).  Moreover, Shi’ite militias are the better-motived and organized ones, equipped and trained with armored vehicles, IEDs, RPGs, rockets, missiles, and Abrams tanks (El-Dessouki, 2017).

Besides that, internal jurisprudential orientations are present among the over 110 thousand Shi’ite members. The 67 factions are divided into 44 following Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 17 following Iraqi marja’ Ali al-Sistani, and six other factions following another Shi’ite marja’ (Al-Jbour, 2021).

Looking at the 2019 Budget of Iraq, it’s possible to notice that over 128 thousand employers work among PMF’s lines, and this workforce is founded with 2.17 billion dollars (Al-Jbour, 2021).

Approach To Struggle

Considering PMF's non-monolithic nature, it is fundamental to consider the organization's internal divisions, both ideologically and organizationally. These differences fuel competition among factions and shape different aims and related approaches. PMF factions often act as a “Pretorian guard” of their reference political elite (Haddad, 2020) and pursue their strategic goals with different levels of autonomy.

The Iranian-aligned factions, also known as fasa’il or “resistance factions”, pursue Iran's regional interests in Iraq and are loyal to Supreme Leader Khamenei. Most of these groups, except for the Badr Organization, which has been active since the 1980s (El-Dessouki, 2017), were established between 2003 and 2014 and primarily targeted U.S. forces (Haddad, 2020). Fasa’il are responsible for the deaths of at least 603 U.S. troops in Iraq (Rudolf, 2020) and have faced repeated accusations of criminal behavior and human rights violations. The more prominent groups among the fasa’il include Kata’ib Hezbollah, the Badr Organization, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, Kata’ib al-Imam Ali, Kata’ib Jund al-Imam, and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada (Haddad 2020). Fasa’il factions are indeed the most relevant and powerful actors within PMF. Armed militias linked to PMF, like Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq and Kata’ib Hezbollah, are often accused of persecuting civil activists, journalists, and media figures. On July 6th, 2020, in the Zayouna district of Bagdad, the academic researcher Hisham al-Hashimi was executed by a masked individual in front of his house. Hashimi was a well-respected academic figure and security expert on both Sunni and Shi’ite groups, including Iran-backed organizations within Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon (Menmy, 2024). Later, a former officer in the Iraqi interior minister, reportedly connected to Kata’ib Hezbollah, confessed to the murder (Menmy, 2024).

On the other hand, a second category called “State hashd” has considerably fewer ideological aims because these factions have been created to protect Iraqi sovereignty and face Islamic State insurgency. They are better integrated within the Iraqi State structure compared to fasi’il, who are often precepted as opponents (Haddad, 2020).

Lastly, the genocidal action of IS against minorities pushed various religious and ethnic communities, like Yazidis and Christians, to create self-defense auxiliaries, also called “Minority hashd”, tied to PMF (Haddad, 2020).

International Relations and Potential Alliances

Shi’ite factions serve the important role of advancing Iranian foreign interests in the region, specifically building and protecting a corridor able to directly connect Iran and the Levant to arm proxies like Hezbollah (Mansour & Jabar, 2017). The Iranian-aligned factions within PMF claim to be the representative of the “Axis of the Resistance” in Iraq, which is historically and precariously forced into a balance between the United States and Iran (Haddad, 2020). The Islamic Republic of Iran and its IRGC have been directly involved in the Iraqi scenario since the Iran-Iraq War, when the Pâsdârân established the Badr Organization and other prominent proxies that later will retag in PMF, with the primary goal of overthrowing Saddam Hussein’s Regime (El-Dessouki, 2017). During the Daesh offensive, PMF militias were mainly coordinated from Teheran, and Soleimani itself covered a leading role during 2015’s Tikrit counter-offensive (El-Dessouki, 2017).

Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the chief of staff of PMF killed by the U.S. in 2020, openly admitted to receiving funding and training from IRGC’s Quds Forces and Hezbollah, providing explosive experts and even support airstrikes (El-Dessouki, 2017). In 2024, after the beheading of Hezbollah’s leadership, the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, and the dismantling of part of the missile and rocket stockpile by Israel, Iran lost its jewel crown in the Levant.  Alternatively to The Party of God, Iran could shift its focus on the Iraqi Hashd and use PMF’s Shi’ite militias as a partial strategic replacement for Hezbollah (Salem, 2024).

After 2011, Teheran and Iraqi PM Maliki agreed on using PMF factions such as Asaib al-Haq and Kata'ib Hezbollah (Al-Salhy, 2013), directly participating in the Syrian Civil War backing the Ba’athist government of Bashar al-Assad (Mansour & Jabar, 2017). Despite this intervention, PMF did not intervene to defend its Syrian ally during the HTS December offensive, which rapidly brought about the collapse of the Assad regime. According to Iranian sources, both Teheran and Bagdad were ready to deploy Iraqi militias, but a lack of adequate air support and the threat of U.S. and Israeli retaliation airstrikes prevented these forces from crossing into Syria (Malik, 2025).

Academic Bibliography (APA)

1.     Al-Jbour, A. (2021). The Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq: Regional Dynamics and Local Variables. Amman: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. https://www.academia.edu/48814325/The_Popular_Mobilization_Forces_in_Iraq_Regional_Dynamics_and_Local_Variables 

2.     Chamoun, M. (2020). The PMF As An Insurgency? & The Case For a Counterinsurgency Approach to the Popular Mobilization Forces. https://www.academia.edu/43462240/The_PMF_As_an_Insurgency_and_The_Case_For_A_Counterinsurgency_Approach_to_the_Popular_Mobilization_Forces 

3.     El-Dessouki, A. (2017). The internal and external roles of Iraqi popular mobilization forces. African Journal of Political Science and International Relations. https://www.academia.edu/85040027/The_internal_and_external_roles_of_Iraqi_popular_mobilization_forces

4.     Haddad, F. (2020). Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units: A Hybrid Actor in a Hybrid  State. Hybrid Conflict, Hybrid Peace: How Militias and Paramilitary Groups Shape Post-Conflict Transitions. https://www.academia.edu/42930481/Iraq_s_Popular_Mobilization_Units_A_Hybrid_Actor_in_a_Hybrid_State

5.     Rudolf, I. (2020). The Future of the Popular Mobilization Forces after the Assassination of Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis. Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI). https://www.academia.edu/43994644/The_Future_of_the_Popular_Mobilization_Forces_after_the_Assassination_of_Abu_Mahdi_Al_Muhandis

7.2. Online Bibliography (APA)

1.     Al-Salhy, S. (2013, April 10). Iraqi Shi’ite Militants Start To Acknowledge Role In Syria. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/world/iraqi-shiite-militants-start-to-acknowledge-role-in-syria-idUSBRE9390OF/

2.     Mansour, R. & Jabar, F.A. (2017, April 28). The Popular Mobilization Forces and Iraq’s Future. Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center. https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2017/04/the-popular-mobilization-forces-and-iraqs-future?lang=en&center=middle-east

3.     Menmy, D.T. (2023, November 8). Who is the Islamic Resistance in Iraq? The New Arab. https://www.newarab.com/news/who-islamic-resistance-iraq

4.     Menmy, D.T. (2024, January 2). Iraq Annuls Conviction of Killer of Prominent Researcher. The New Arab. https://www.newarab.com/news/iraq-annuls-conviction-killer-prominent-researcher 

5.     Salem, P. (2024, January 7). The Middle East’s changing strategic landscape. Middle East Institute. https://www.mei.edu/publications/middle-easts-changing-strategic-landscape  

6.     Malik, H. & Knights, M. (2024, June 20). Profile: The Islamic Resistance of Iraq. The Washington Institute. https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/profile-islamic-resistance-iraq

7.     Malik, H. (2025, January 21). PMF Non-Deployment to Save Assad: Sudani’s View Contradicted by Iran. The Washington Institute. https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/pmf-non-deployment-save-assad-sudanis-view-contradicted-iran