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| Iraq |
| Shiite rivalries could break Iraq’s deceptive calm in 2023 |
| 2023-03-05 |
[Shafaq News] Since the appointment of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani in October 2022, Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella organization of mostly Shiite militia groups that is accorded a formal status as an auxiliary branch of the Iraqi security forces, is making a comeback. Despite many challenges and serious setbacks since 2018, the PMF has shown a marked ability to bounce back from weakened leadership and internal fractures, a significant electoral defeat, and the loss of political capital with large segments of the Iraqi public. It has survived pressures resulting from the January 2020 U.S. liquidations of its former commander, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and his Iranian sponsor, Qassem Soleimani , the former head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, and from measures undertaken by the former prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi. Not only has the PMF proved resilient, but it also retains political and military advantages that are likely to make it a force to be reckoned with for decades to come.Yet the PMF also faces challenges, and its malign activities, which include human rights When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much... |
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