…Washington and Israel accuse [Popular Mobilization Forces] of being proxies for Iran. The site attacked on Wednesday houses barracks for regular soldiers, but it is a base shared with PMF units…
“Until now, they hadn’t attacked Iraqi soldiers…”
The ruling Shia coalition government finds it difficult to disarm the militias, as requested by U.S. President Donald Trump, especially in the context of a regional war where taking sides against Iran would mean aligning with the “Zionist enemy” [referring to Israel].
…“The U.S. A-10 is using bases in Jordan; Arab countries are already joining the war,”…
After decades of joint training exercises between U.S. Marines and Iraqi soldiers, including with the PMF fighters who battled ISIS, resentment toward the U.S. is growing. “We’ve been allies for so long, but the only one they provide air cover for is Israel,”…
So I’m a bit confused since I’m not familiar with many of the factions involved…
The US attacked bases, not on the Iraq-Iran border, but in central Iraq. There’s been no Iranian ground troop movement in other countries yet that I’m aware of, so whom exactly was the US supposed to be attacking?
This is an Iraqi militia, the Popular Mobilization Forces, which formed during and were instrumental in the war against ISIS. Basically they stepped up where the Iraqi military failed, and helped push ISIS out of Iraq. They’re formally and legally a part of the Iraqi military, but are also de facto independent and closely linked to Iran.
After looking them up, the PMF is aligned with Iraq, though not their official military, and they were allies to the US fighting the Islamic State, but since they are funded by the Iranian gov and are mainly Shia, even though they have been good allies to America in the past, they’re now being attacked unless the Iraqi gov disarms them.
While being funded by, and formerly sworn loyal to Iran, it sounds like Iraq legitimized them in 2016 into a still mainly independent, but now non-politically aligned force under supervision of the Iraqi supreme military leader. This is why they have been doing things such as guarding the US embassy in Baghdad as mentioned in the article.
Despite seemingly following the rules and agreements with them, they’re still “too-Iranian” for the US leadership and this was a series of “warnings” to give up their weapons to the official Iraqi military? That seems to make this whole story make sense, at least in line with how the US government seems to operate these days. Have I got the gist of it now? Thank you for your help.