ISIS relies purely on geographic terrain to plan and execute its activities…

ISIS has significantly increased its operations over the past year after a reorganization that saw it focus on creating mobile groups of fighters to conduct smaller-scale attacks. Understanding how its reconstituting itself as an insurgent force and at these early stages is critical to preventing its resurgence.

ISIS in Iraq’s urban areas appears to have reorganized its fighters in small “mobile” subgroups. The group has reformulated its fighting strategies in accordance with new realities on the ground: a decline in its ability to fight after losing first-tier leaders and thousands of fighters in its 2017 territorial defeat, U.S. sanctions on many of its financial resources, and its decreasing ability to recruit and sustain new blood. Nonetheless, ISIS  is ramping up its activities in areas in which it still has influence by exploiting Iraq’s internal problems and utilizing familiar geographical territory.

Varying Estimates of ISIS Fighters 

In August 2020, almost two years after the group’s military defeat, the U.N. estimated that more than 10,000 ISIS fighters were still operating in Iraq and Syria. This is similar to a late 2019 assessment from counter-terrorism authorities in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, which estimated 10,000 ISIS members in Iraq, 4,000-5,000 of whom were fighters and the rest of whom were supporters and sleeper cells integrated into local communities in the majority-Sunni provinces of western and northwestern Iraq. 

These numbers far exceed estimates from Iraqi intelligence, which puts the number of ISIS fighters in Iraq at 2,000-3,000, including 500 fighters who infiltrated the country out of 859 fighters who escaped from the detention of the Syrian Democratic Forces in October 2019.

All these estimates may be more than the real numbers of ISIS combatants who launch attacks on selected targets, set up ambushes, plant explosive devices, kidnap and assassinate social and political leaders, and undertake other operations in keeping with the organization’s strategic priorities. ISIS has been able to revive these operations three years after its military defeat in its last stronghold in the Iraqi city of Rawa, 90 kilometers (56 miles) east of the city of Al-Qaim on the Syrian border, on Nov. 17, 2017.

A study of security operations against ISIS in Iraq shows that most do not result in the arrest or killing of large numbers of ISIS fighters. Military units from various branches of the security forces and the Popular Mobilization Forces Shia militia alliance, including tribal units, from multiple provinces participate in these operations, which are supported by the air forces of the Iraqi Army and the international coalition and cover large areas of more than one province. These include, for example, the “Lions of al-Jazeera”  operation that was launched in May 2020 and encompassed the provinces of Anbar, Ninewa, and Salah al-Din. These operations often uncover tunnels, which are — in addition to caves — essential places, called madafat or “guest houses,” for harboring ISIS fighters, and finding explosive belts and IEDs. 

The military operations to combat ISIS cells are disproportionate with the results. The officially announced outcome of the “Lions of al-Jazeera” campaign resulted in the arrest of two suspects, the destruction of two hideouts, the controlled detonation of four explosive devices, the deactivation of a booby-trapped house, the destruction of a tunnel, and the seizure of two motorcycles. 

In Anbar Province, according to official results announced by the Defense Ministry’s Security Media Cell, the security forces participating in “Lions of al-Jazeera” announced on Oct. 1, 2020, that three ISIS fighters had been killed in one of the tunnels in which they found projectiles of various types in modest numbers. 

In Salah al-Din province, after a series of operations to clear the Makhoul mountain range, the Security Media Cell announced in November 2020 that it had found five tunnels and some military equipment but did not arrest or kill any of the organization’s fighters. 

The press briefings about these security operations do not indicate that a significant number of ISIS fighters were killed, nor do they indicate that clashes between security forces and ISIS fighters took place except in rare cases. They do reveal the destruction of shelters, weapons, and combat equipment that the organization had stored in desert and mountainous areas once ISIS realized that defeat was inevitable.  

The security forces, including units of the Popular Mobilization Forces, attach great importance to decoupling Iraq from Syria such that it does not serve as a singular battlespace for ISIS by restricting the cross-border movement of fighters and weapons. In this way, they seek to prevent the infiltration of ISIS fighters from Syria into Iraq, as these fighters hide in the deserts of Anbar and Ninewa to prepare to move to areas that are important to the organization in terms of security, such as the Makhoul and Hamrin mountain ranges in Salah al-Din. At the same time, the Popular Mobilization Forces control the Syrian-Iraqi border to facilitate their own interests such as trade and weapons flow from and to Syria. 

The security forces succeeded in securing more than 450 kilometers (280 miles) of the 610-kilometer (379-mile) Iraqi-Syrian border by cooperating with the International Coalition to install surveillance towers, barbed wire, and thermal cameras, in addition to reconnaissance drones. 

ISIS’s Geographic Distribution 

ISIS’s increased use of “mobile groups” that carry out operations in different areas — often far from its bases or from shelters such as the madafat, which are located in rough terrains, rocky caves, or underground tunnels — means the group’s actual presence cannot be judged by its territorial claims or by announcements from Iraqi authorities. 

No longer concerned about maintaining its wilayat (province) structure, and by ignoring the federal government’s administrative divisions, ISIS relies purely on geographic terrain to plan and execute its activities. Even though the group is no longer acting as a state as it was during the caliphate years from 2014 to 2018, its communiques claiming attacks still refer to the wilayat as part of its PR strategy. 

Iraqi security officials’ statements indicate that the organization relies on remote bases deep in the desert in Anbar, Ninewa, mountain ranges, valleys, and orchards in Baghdad, Kirkuk, Salah al-Din, and Diyala to house its fighters and establish monitoring and control points to secure supply routes. It also uses these bases to establish command centers and small camps for training, digging tunnels, and exploiting caves in mountainous areas. 

ISIS fighters’ geographical distribution can be inferred by examining the operations it launches against security forces and the Popular and Tribal Mobilization Forces. These fighters are distributed mainly in overlapping “geographical sectors” in Anbar, Baghdad, Babil, Kirkuk, Salah al-Din, Ninewa, and Diyala.

The first sector is an extension of the desert in eastern Syria. It constitutes a meeting point between ISIS fighters in Syria and Iraq, who move from there to Salah al-Din, which represents the main land communication node for the organization. It links ISIS groups coming mostly from Syria through Anbar and then moving to neighboring provinces: to the south reaching the northern belt of Baghdad, east to Diyala, north to Kirkuk, and to the northwest reaching Ninewa. This sector includes Anbar and Ninewa provinces within a wide desert area interspersed with valleys, mountain ranges, and bodies of water.

One of the most important valleys in this sector that ISIS uses to house its fighters is Houran Valley, which descends 350 kilometers (217 miles) from Saudi territory and enters Iraq, ending in the Euphrates near Albaghdadi. Another is the Wadi Al-Ubayyid Valley, which passes the Saudi border and Anbar Governorate in the border region of Arar, and ends in Razzaza Lake in Karbala Governorate, south of Baghdad. 

This sector also includes the desert of Al-Baaj district, southwest of Mosul and 50 kilometers (31 miles) east of the Syrian border, and the desert of Hatra district, south of Mosul. These two areas overlap geographically with the Anbar desert in the Al-Qaim region north of the Euphrates River and include the Badush mountain range, as well as the Al-Tharthar Valley and Al-Tharthar Lake, northeast of Anbar, next to Salah Al-Din province. 

The second geographical sector includes areas overlapping with the first geographical sector in the southeast of Ninewa and northwest of Salah al-Din. It includes the geographical areas between the districts of Sharqat in Salah al-Din next to the Kirkuk and Makhmur in the southeast of Ninewa near Kirkuk and Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan region. 

The third geographical sector is the most important for the organization and the center of ISIS’s main activities. It includes Salah al-Din, Kirkuk, and Diyala provinces, extending to the Al Kateon sector and the areas of Al-Muqdadiya, Khanaqin, Jalawla, and Qarataba. 

The sector features valleys such as Zghitoun and Shay in Kirkuk, agricultural areas with dense orchards suitable for hiding and transporting ISIS fighters, setting up ambushes, and planting explosive devices. ISIS mobile groups in this sector in Salah al-Din overlap groups in Diyala through the Makhoul and Hamrin mountain ranges. 

In addition to the three main geographical sectors, ISIS groups have a presence in the western Baghdad belt areas in Abu Ghraib and Radwaniyah and in the northern Baghdad belt in Rashidiya, Tarmiyah, and Al-Mashahidah. They also exist in the cities of Balad and Samarra, in the south of Salah al-Din, and south of Baghdad in the Jurf al-Sakhar area, located 50 kilometers to the east of Amiriyat al-Fallujah in Anbar.

ISIS cells are also present in areas that are in dispute between the Iraqi central and Kurdistan regional governments, where the lack of security coordination gives the organization some freedom of movement. This was especially true after the Kurdish peshmerga forces evacuated these areas in October 2017 following then-Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi’s decision to move Iraqi security forces and Popular Mobilization Forces to control these areas after a September 2017 independence referendum organized by the Kurds.

Other areas, however, have witnessed joint operations by security forces from several governorates to track down and hunt ISIS fighters and destroy their bases. The first phase of the operation “The Lions of Al-Jazeera II” operation, which was launched on Feb. 1, 2020, with the participation of units from the Al-Jazeera Operations Command, the West Ninewa Operations Command, the Salah al-Din Operations Command, and Popular Mobilization Forces brigades (including tribal units) is a key example of this kind of coordination. 

ISIS’s Operations on the Rise 

According to information I have obtained through monitoring official Iraqi and non-Iraqi sites and other sites close to ISIS, the organization has carried out dozens of operations in Iraq since the start of 2021. The propaganda ISIS has employed often takes advantage of highly publicized global events to carry out attacks and show the world they are still present. The election of U.S. President Joe Biden was such an event, and ISIS escalated the pace of its attacks after Biden’s inauguration.  

According to media outlets close to ISIS, such as Amaq News Agency, the group carried out 1,422 operations in 2020, an average of four per day. The organization’s main tool was explosive devices, used 485 times, followed by 334 sniping operations, in addition to 252 clashes or exchanges of fire. Another 94 execution operations were carried out against individuals affiliated with security services, the Popular Mobilization Forces, or the Kurdish peshmerga forces and against people cooperating with the government, including mayors and tribal leaders. There were an additional 257 operations that ISIS’s media outlets mention but do not classify. 

Amaq claims the organization killed or injured 2,748 people in 2020, including 724 killings in Diyala, 643 in Salah al-Din, 576 in Anbar, 474 in Kirkuk, 210 in Baghdad, 104 in Babil, and 26 in Ninewa. This indicates a 50% increase in operations compared to 2019 and 11% more deaths and injuries. 

The group also claimed to have destroyed or damaged 559 vehicles of various types, 85 houses and farms, 60 thermal cameras, 34 barracks, and 28 electrical energy transmission towers, most of which were in Diyala, Babil and Anbar. 

ISIS was limited to operations that do not require large numbers of fighters, including planting IEDs, setting up ambushes, sniping operations, assassinations, and burning homes and farms, none of which have major political or security repercussions. An exception is some limited “special operations,” such as the one in which two suicide bombers detonated in Tayaran Square in central Baghdad on Jan. 21, killing more than 30 people and wounding dozens in a “rare” security breach, nearly three years after the last operation in the capital that was claimed by the organization. 

Pandemic, Security Vacuum Provided Openings 

ISIS took advantage of the security vacuum in early 2020 after the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and the tensions between the U.S. and Iran. Two days after the Jan. 2 assassination of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani and Popular Mobilization Forces deputy commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, coalition forces, wary of escalation, announced a brief halt in training Iraqi forces. The training resumed but was halted again on March 19 due to the spread of COVID-19 in Iraq. Coalition forces repositioned to different camps, and some countries such as the United Kingdom and Spain withdrew soldiers from Iraq. 

Soleimani’s assassination also prompted the Iraqi parliament to vote in January 2020 for the withdrawal of foreign forces. Official figures stated that before the pandemic there were about 8,000 foreign troops in Iraq, including 5,200 from the United States, while unofficial sources say the real number exceeds 16,000. The United States reduced the number of its soldiers in Iraq in September 2020 to about 2,500 soldiers in response to the Iraqi government’s request. 

This vacuum gave ISIS more freedom of movement for its mobile groups, facilitating logistical support and the restructuring and distributing these groups in a way that allowed the organization to securely cover the areas where its fighters are deployed. These deployments were in areas far from Iraqi security forces, which did not announce any military operations until April 2020. The first operation included the governorates of Diyala, Anbar, and Salah al-Din and was undertaken in response to the killing of 170 civilians and soldiers, along with 135 militants during the first quarter of 2020. 

Weakened but Still Effective 

Via its mobile groups, ISIS still possesses sufficient combat capabilities to threaten security and stability, but the group remains very weak. Currently, the organization still lacks the ability to execute major operations, and its attacks are limited to open targets that are not of strategic importance. What this means is that it is unlikely to attempt to take control of territory in Iraq or Syria due to the decline in its combat capabilities and financial resources. The group also remains vulnerable to the international coalition and Iraqi security forces if it tries to accelerate the pace of its resurgence. 

ISIS needs to recruit new fighters and rebuild its leadership system to centralize control, whether in directing orders or gathering security and intelligence information to prepare for major operations. Recruiting is more difficult, especially after its four years of control over territory led to widespread societal rejection of its authority. Local communities have been more closely cooperating with coalition and security forces to prevent ISIS from making a comeback, especially after witnessing increased stability in areas where tribes cooperated with the authorities. That said, the organization still attracts some unemployed people, outlaws, or people hunted down for social reasons, all of whom find that joining the ranks of the organization is a means of escaping from social and judicial prosecutions, in addition to ensuring minimum means of subsistence.    

This decline in local support also gives ISIS less flexibility in attracting funding. After gaining control of Mosul in 2014, ISIS relied on diversifying its sources of financing, whether by controlling hundreds of millions of dollars (for example, more than $420 million from state banks in Mosul) or by producing and marketing oil from fields it controlled in Iraq and Syria. It also trades in hard currencies through exchange and transfer networks, using third parties such as the Al-Ard Al-Jadidah company that moved from its headquarters in the city of Al-Qaim to the Turkish city of Samsun after the defeat of ISIS in Iraq. The company is part of the Al-Rawi Network that was run by Fawaz Muhammad Jubayr al-Rawi in the Syrian city of Albu Kamal, before he was killed in a June 2017 airstrike.  

In December 2016, the U.S. Treasury Department included Fawaz Muhammad Jubayr al-Rawi and other members of the Al-Rawi Network and associated entities such as the Al-Ard Al-Jadidah company on the sanctions list for providing important financial and logistical support to ISIS. 

Most of the organization’s activities during January and February of this year were concentrated in the Iraqi governorates of Baghdad, Diyala, Kirkuk, Anbar, Ninewa and Salah al-Din. ISIS took advantage of some security gaps resulting from the decline in the level of coordination between the active forces, whether the security forces, the Popular Mobilization Forces or the Kurdish peshmerga forces.  

Ending ISIS is More than Combatting Terrorism 

During more than four years of the war against ISIS, and in addition to the dozens of security operations announced by the Iraqi forces to hunt down the remaining ISIS fighters, the U.S.-led international coalition carried out more than 34,000 air and artillery strikes that contributed to a large extent in taking control of all ISIS-controlled areas in Syria and Iraq by March 2019. Yet, according to U.S. intelligence sources, , the organization was not defeated and remains a threat to the security and stability of Iraq and Syria, with evident activity in more than six provinces in western and northwestern Iraq. 

The organization focuses its operations on targeting influential figures, especially those cooperating with the government and security agencies, to remove the obstacles it believes prevent it from recruiting more young people into its ranks and to limit the security cooperation that leads to the exposure of the organization’s members and fighters’ hideouts. It also aims to secure a “friendly” environment for the activities of its members in the Sunni community. 

Ending the threat ISIS poses cannot be realized without a political settlement that reintegrates Sunni Arabs in the political process, a fair distribution of power and wealth according to the population proportions of Sunni Arabs, and rebuilding cities destroyed by the war on ISIS that lasted from 2014 to 2018. In addition, emigrants and forcibly displaced people should be allowed to return to the governorates in the west and northwestern Iraq, and the Popular Mobilization Forces’ control of most of these areas must end. 

Additionally, efforts by the government and civil society organizations are needed to accept the social impact of the return of ISIS members’ families who are still in the camps and who are taught an ideology that adopts the ideas and approach of the organization. This is especially evident in the Al Hol camp in Hasakah, Syria, which includes thousands of ISIS families and members.  

Article first published on New Line Institute For Strategy And Policy based in Washington D.C.

Raed Al-Hamid is an independent Iraqi researcher and former consultant for the International Crisis Group. He tweets under @Raedalhamid1.

With Hezbollah’s growing regional activities, the Shia felt they had to pay the price.

Hezbollah’s adventurism in Syria and the wider region has alienated the support of many Lebanese Shia. The organization has also lost its military discipline and is under financial pressure, putting it in a precarious position.

Hezbollah currently faces four main challenges that have disillusioned previous supporters.

First, its ongoing involvement in the war in Syria has exhausted the organization militarily and undermined its mission statement to its support base. The heavy price paid by Lebanese Shia, without any tangible victory, has caused some to question their relation and loyalty to the militia and its ties with the Iranian regime.

Hezbollah originally emerged in south Lebanon in 1982, with substantial training and funding from the Iranian Islamic regime, with resistance as its core goal. However, its mission statement clearly adhered to the Islamic revolution and with a broad goal of creating an Islamic state in Lebanon. Gradually, its Shia ideology, commitment and support to Iran’s regional operations in the region – first in Iraq then in Syria – exposed its real goal: supporting Iran’s hegemony in the region. Its members and support-base constituted mostly of Shia fighters and loyalists, who eventually found themselves tied up in Iran’s regional plans. With the outbreak of the war in Syria, Hezbollah decided to intervene on behalf of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, sending thousands of fighters across the border.

The intervention has been costly. Not only has Hezbollah lost many fighters and commanders, but it has failed to achieve a clear-cut victory that it could use for propaganda purposes, such as the “divine victory” against Israel that was proclaimed in 2006. The main so-called achievement has been keeping President Assad in power, which has done little for Lebanese Shia. In contrast, many Lebanese were killed fighting for Assad in Syria, while at home the community feels more isolated than ever, as they lost access to and help from regional stakeholders, mainly the Gulf, which has a history of supporting Lebanon in times of need. With Hezbollah’s growing regional activities, the Shia felt they had to pay the price.

Second, Hezbollah’s rhetoric of resistance has lost much of its appeal.

The organization has taken on an increased regional role under its Iranian backer. Beginning in Syria, the group is now involved with pro-Iranian forces in Iraq and Yemen.

This expansion has led to considerable and frequent Israeli military responses, with air strikes and targeted killings causing major losses to Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. Despite its rhetoric of resistance, Hezbollah has not retaliated to any of the Israeli strikes on its bases.

Instead, both Hezbollah and Iran now prioritize regional hegemony over resistance against Israel. They are reluctant to sacrifice the significant investments they have made in their regional infrastructure means in a conflict with Israel, which could lead to major losses in their arsenal and infrastructure that they would struggle to replace immediately.

Third, Hezbollah’s military has lost its discipline and has weaknesses in its arsenal.

To sustain its involvement in Syria, Hezbollah needed to recruit tens of thousands of new fighters who lack the discipline and training of the group’s previous fighters.

Hezbollah now has a fighting force that has been infiltrated by disruptive elements that could easily go out of control. Whether the group’s leadership will have the time to establish discipline and control over its entire force remains to be seen, as it is overextended and could find itself in a conflict.

As for their arsenal, although they have started to develop a network of precision missiles, these are now more exposed to Israeli strikes and international pressure, because they constitute a serious danger on Israel’s infrastructure, and at the same time they endanger US regional allies.

Forth, Hezbollah is going through an unprecedented financial crisis due to the US sanctions on Iran.

This crisis is affecting Hezbollah’s capability to build its social and military. Most of their social services – such as health and welfare system – are no longer catering for the whole Shia community. Instead, they are only offered to the close circle of military personnel and high-ranking executives. Even the contractors that were hired to fight in Syria are not all able to access Hezbollah’s welfare system.

Hezbollah has recently created a new system to avert the repercussions of this crisis, which is now aggravated by the deterioration of the Lebanese economy. However, flooding their stores and centers with Syrian and Iranian goods, and moving hard currency within a small circles of loyal Shia, will only increase tensions. The financial crisis is exacerbating divisions within the Lebanese Shia, first between Hezbollah’s military and civilian employees, and second between Hezbollah members and the wider Shia community.

While most Shia have lost their jobs or are receiving a fraction of their salaries, Hezbollah’s important personnel are still receiving their salaries in US dollars – a rare privilege in Lebanon today.

Accordingly, the sense of inequality is exacerbating discontent among the wider Shia community, many of whom are feeling sidelined. Most importantly, many in the Shia community feel that they are going through the same pains and struggles as the rest of the Lebanese, who have called out a corrupt political class that includes Hezbollah.

The Shia are not immune to the political elite’s destruction of the country, and Hezbollah will not shield them from the collapse. This is a feeling that will grow, and could lead to more tension within the community.

Eventually, the Shia will regain their national identity, one that highlights their Lebanese citizenship, rather than a dependence on Hezbollah and the Iranian regime. Rebuilding Lebanon’s state institutions, rather than foster a deeper relationship with those who weaken it, will protect all Lebanese, including the Shia population.

Article first appeared on Al Arabiya.

Hanin Ghaddar is the Friedmann Fellow in The Washington Institute’s Geduld Program on Arab Politics.

Iran had its eye on shrines since the fall of the (Iraqi) regime in 2003…

In September, a senior Iranian commander made an unannounced visit to one of Shia Islam’s holiest sites in the southern Iraqi city of Kerbala.

Hassan Pelarak, a top officer in the Revolutionary Guards’ elite Quds Force, had recently been sanctioned by the US for weapons smuggling. He was checking in on a construction project led by a firm he owns together with other Revolutionary Guards, a foundation linked to Iran’s Supreme Leader. This foundation too is under US sanctions.

The vast, $600 million expansion at the Imam Hussein shrine, which is revered as the place of martyrdom of the Prophet Mohammed’s grandson, will swell the capacity of what is already the world’s largest annual pilgrimage, dwarfing the Hajj to Saudi Arabia’s Mecca. It is the biggest development at the shrine in 300 years.

An Iraqi worker at the site sent Reuters pictures of Pelarak, wearing a hard hat and sporting a blue surgical mask, having his temperature taken before entering. The visit, confirmed by an Iraqi employee of the foundation, was not reported by Iranian or Iraqi media. But his visit was not unusual. Pelarak and other Guards commanders overseeing the project freely drop in, workers say, and are given quick tours by the exclusively Iranian companies and engineers they have contracted to carry out the work.

Qassem Soleimani, the late Quds Force commander who spearheaded Iran’s military and political strategy across the region, was filmed touring the project in 2018, 18 months before he was killed by a US drone strike. His successor, Esmail Ghaani, made an unannounced visit to the shrine two weeks after Pelarak, said an Iranian source in Kerbala.

Day and night, Iranian laborers fill in a 40-metre deep, 50,000-square-metre crater next to the shrine with steel girders and cement brought from Iran. The multi-story buildings they are erecting will contain ablution stations, a museum and a library. Millions of predominantly Shia pilgrims from across the Islamic world will access the Hussein shrine via a large road tunnel.

It is one of the largest of the multi-million dollar projects that the Revolutionary Guards-owned Kawthar foundation (Kowsar in Persian) is leading to develop religious tourism in Iraq and Syria – with more in the pipeline.

For this report, Reuters paid five visits to the Kerbala project site, examined public information from the shrines and companies and interviewed at least 20 Iraqi and Iranian workers, engineers, businessmen, religious and political officials. The examination reveals how Iran’s close involvement in religious tourism is bringing Tehran soft power and cementing a presence in Iraqi religious centers that are the nexus of Shia regional influence.

Control of shrine development also deepens trade ties and is a target of potential economic opportunity for Iran: Religious tourism is worth billions of dollars a year in Iraq, the second-largest earner of revenue for the country after the oil sector.

“Iran has long penetrated the Iraqi deep state,” said Bangen Rekani, a former Iraqi housing minister with knowledge of the projects. Increasingly, he said, “Iranians use their soft power and religious ties, which can be more important than political ties.”

Iraq’s government grants religious projects special privileges, including tax exemptions on imports of Iranian cement, steel and other materials. According to multiple sources, many of these goods are brought into Iraq ostensibly for shrine development but are then sold elsewhere in the country. Reuters couldn’t determine the extent of this trade, which helps counter Western sanctions on Iran.

The development of Shia shrines is being spearheaded by Iran’s Holy Shrines Reconstruction Headquarters, a body set up by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and run by the Revolutionary Guards’ appointees. In March, Washington sanctioned the Headquarters and Kawthar, its Iraq-based engineering wing. Pelarak was among officials targeted. The Americans alleged the Headquarters and Kawthar were involved in “lethal aid” to proxy militias in Iraq and Syria, intelligence activities and money laundering. A Treasury spokesperson told Reuters that Iran sought to expand its influence and exploit Iraqi financial and business sectors.

Khamenei has condemned US sanctions as an attempt to destroy Iran’s economy and overthrow its ruling system. Reuters sought comment for this article from the Iranian government, the Revolutionary Guard, its engineering wing Kawthar and Pelarak, but didn’t receive a response. An Iraqi government official said he couldn’t comment about Kawthar’s activities in Iraq because he didn’t have details, a remark echoed by a spokesperson for the Iraqi state body that administers religious sites.

A spokesman for the Hussein shrine, Afdhal al-Shami, told Reuters that Iran’s involvement was needed because “Iraq’s economy is such that we can’t undertake a project like this on our own.”

“Iranians love the shrines. When this money comes in from Iranian donors, through an official body, that’s a psychological boost and good publicity at home and abroad for the Iranian government,” he said in an interview.

“Down to the mirrors, it’s all Iranian”

Iran built power in Iraq after the 2003 US invasion that toppled Sunni ruler Saddam Hussein and brought rule by Iraq’s Shia majority, especially parties supported by Tehran. The Revolutionary Guards grew a military-business empire in Iran, then expanded their influence across Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. They created a corridor to support militia allies across the region and dominate land borders, overground trade, and expand their presence at Shia holy places.

But now the Islamic Republic’s attempts to expand influence in Iraq are facing new challenges. Iran is distracted by the coronavirus pandemic at home and dissent against the political parties and militant groups it backs in Iraq and Lebanon. Iraq’s top Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has supported calls for political reform and long opposed foreign interference, including that of Iran. The United States and its allies are trying to roll back Iranian influence with sanctions, assassinations of military commanders and a new alliance between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. For the first time in years, an Iraqi government, led by Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, has sided with the United States. Kadhimi’s appointment was opposed by Iran-aligned militia groups.

Pelarak’s September visit to Kerbala was the latest sign that despite US pressure on the Revolutionary Guards’ activities in Iraq, the Guards press on with Kawthar’s work.

The US Treasury’s sanctions in March said Kawthar “served as a base for Iranian intelligence activities in Iraq, including the shipment of weapons and ammunition to Iranian-backed terrorist militia groups.” An Iraqi customs official told Reuters Iran did not need Kawthar, an organization focused on trade and soft power, to transfer weapons. “There are other ways of doing that – their proxy militias control the borders from the Kurdish north to the south of Iraq,” he said.

Kawthar carries out shrine development on behalf of the Holy Shrines Reconstruction Headquarters using a number of specialized Iranian companies. Kawthar is owned by Pelarak and at least two other Guards-linked officials, including a Quds Force commander based in the southern Iraqi holy city of Najaf, according to the US Treasury.

Iraqi traders and officials described how during Iran’s economic downturn Kawthar has become more important because of its grip on development of religious sites.

“Iran had its eye on shrines since the fall of the (Iraqi) regime in 2003,” said Dhiaa al-Asadi, a former lawmaker close to Najaf-born Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

The Hussein shrine, visited by up to 50 million pilgrims each year, is housed within a vast, golden-domed mosque decorated with ornate entrances, wooden gates and glass – all from Iran, according to former Iraqi housing minister Rekani and several other government sources. “Down to the mirrors in the shrines, it’s all Iranian,” Rekani said.

The faithful eat for free in adjoined dining halls and pray on carpets while drilling and other sounds of upkeep punctuate an otherwise quiet reverence.

A Reuters reporter visited a Kerbala hotel leased out by the Hussein shrine to host engineers working on the project. The hotel lies on a secured street monitored by cameras. In the reception, a calligraphic sign commemorates the assassinated Soleimani. Engineers dropped by reception on their break to collect packed lunches of rice, chicken and barberries, typical Persian fare. Iranian workers occupy two more hotels in the city and temporary cabins next to Kawthar’s nondescript offices, which overlook the shrine expansion project.

There, Iranian workers wearing the overalls of the companies contracted by Kawthar toil next to health and safety signs in Persian. The engineers in hard hats are often graduates of Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, according to an Iraqi contractor working with Kawthar. The university is on Western sanctions lists for alleged involvement in nuclear weapons research. Iran’s science minister has said its activities have nothing to do with atomic weapons research.

The construction site, half empty about a year ago, has quickly been filled with the skeletons of buildings. Pelarak signed a nearly $650 million contract in 2015 with the Hussein shrine for Kawthar to build the extension, named the Sahn al-Aqila Zeinab, the Courtyard of Zeinab, Hussein’s sister.

The Headquarters lists at least 17 projects it is overseeing at important shrines in Najaf, Kerbala, Baghdad and the northern city of Samarra. These contracts are often years-long and worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

In Najaf, Kawthar and the Headquarters have repaired the Imam Ali shrine’s golden dome and facade, and are carrying out a $500 million infrastructure expansion there too. In Baghdad, they have built ornate windows at the shrines of two Shia imams and have been repairing a minaret that is leaning because of swelling groundwater, according to a shrine official. The Headquarters is also working on an expansion of the al-Askari shrine in Samarra.

Pelarak is eyeing more work. He told Iranian semi-official news agency Fars in August he hoped to carry out an expansion at another site in Kerbala, the Imam Abbas shrine, part of a plan “agreed by Iraq’s housing ministry” but not yet requested by the shrine. A spokesman for Iraq’s housing ministry said he couldn’t comment because, “there is no accurate information available on this.” The shrine didn’t comment.

Several Iranian firms carry out the work, serving as contractors. A tunnel, foundation and water specialist called Abtaban is working on the Kerbala project, according to the Revolutionary Guards-linked Tasnim news agency. Padideh, a civil engineering contractor, and Mana, a construction firm, are involved in both the Kerbala project and the development of the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf, according to Iranian news and company websites. Padideh says on its website it is aiming to increase its work in the region.

Reuters found no link between these companies and the Guards beyond the contracts with Guards-run organisations, and the firms are not under US sanctions. The companies did not respond to requests for comment.

An Iraqi government official said Kawthar’s activities and finances are not shared with any Iraqi government departments.

A spokesman for the Iraqi state body that administers Shia religious sites said: “We can’t discuss any topics related to the work of Iranian companies because we do not intervene or have specific details on their activities. They work in holy cities but other than that we don’t know anything.”

Shami, the spokesman for the Hussein shrine, said “if Kawthar has other activities, we don’t know about this.” He said he was also unaware of US sanctions against Kawthar.

Special status

The Iraqi state funds the initial buying up of private and public land at the sites through budget allocations to Shia religious authorities which make the purchase, said Rekani, the former housing minister.

For the Sahn al-Aqila, part of the Kerbala project, religious authorities paid some $170 million to buy at least 300 properties, according to shrine officials. The Hussein and adjacent Abbas shrines plan to take over more land nearby, the officials said.

Mohammed Musawi, who used to live where the Sahn al-Aqila is being built and owned two hotels there, said the demolition of his properties brought a handsome fee but erased his business and a generations-old family property.

“I didn’t want to sell the house, but when the shrine decides to expand, there’s nothing you can do,” he said. “People receive a lot of money to sell, and if they refuse are given a court order.”

The shrine paid Musawi and his six siblings nearly $1 million for their property. He now runs a corner shop and relies heavily on the pilgrimage business.

After land acquisition, shrine projects are then fully funded by Iran – ostensibly from donations by devout Iranian Shia and through charities linked to Shia shrine organizations, officials at the Hussein shrine said. An Iranian employee of Kawthar, who declined to be named, said much of the money came from Iranian state coffers, but he didn’t know what proportion. A project costing in excess of $600 million “can’t just come from donations, you need a state behind that,” he reasoned. Other Iranian and Iraqi sources supported this view.

Shrine projects get special status under Iraqi law, meaning they are overseen by the shrine organisations, not by the state. There are customs exemptions for all materials coming from Iran for religious, donor-funded projects.

An engineering official at the Hussein shrine declined to say how much steel, cement, wood and other imports are brought from Iran for the project. An Iraqi trader who has worked with Kawthar said large quantities of Iranian steel and cement are imported tax-free under the guise of shrine projects, but then sold via middlemen onto the Iraqi market, where prices are higher than in Iran. A senior Iraqi official with direct knowledge said firms involved in shrine projects “often order several times the required amount” of building materials.

Shami, the Hussein shrine spokesman, maintained that it would be difficult to siphon off goods in this way because they are inspected by Iranian and Iraqi customs officials then transferred straight to the shrine’s warehouses. He didn’t rule out the possibility that some imports had forged shrine documentation, however. “Everything is possible in Iraq,” he said.

The firms have had their workers bussed in from Iran even when the borders are closed, as during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. One Iranian employee of Kawthar told Reuters that when the borders first closed there were problems getting into Iraq, “but the Hussein shrine intervened to get exemptions.” He estimated there were around 200 Iranian workers currently, down from 2,000 earlier.

Shami said he didn’t know if the shrine had sought travel exemptions for Iranian workers.

The Iraqi customs official and an Iraqi contractor said Kawthar is also involved in other infrastructure projects, including energy. Among these projects, according to the contractor, is a power plant in Basra. The power plant project was led by an Iranian energy company called Mapna, which has also been sanctioned by the United States. Mapna is building power plants in Najaf and Baghdad, as well as one of Kerbala’s largest hotels, a Reuters review of official filings found. Mapna didn’t respond to a request for comment.

A long game

Workers in Kerbala say they see evidence that US sanctions are hurting Iran, and Kawthar. The Iranian Kawthar employee told Reuters he used to take home $1,100 a month, paid in the stable Iraqi dinar, but since the sanctions kicked in, he gets only around $200 because he is now paid in the weak Iranian rial. Work on the site for local Iraqis has all but dried up. An unemployed Iraqi engineering graduate, who used to get regular labor at the shrine, told Reuters he now spends his days hoping for work. He struggles to support a young family.

For the Islamic Republic, its involvement in Iraq’s Shia shrines is a long game. It brings an enduring presence in Shia centers of power, where Iran hopes to influence the succession of Iraq’s most powerful Shia cleric, Sistani. The Guards are regularly in Najaf, where Sistani is based. Sistani’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Sistani’s edicts sent Shia Iraqis to the polls for the first time in their lives in 2005, created an amalgam of Shia paramilitaries to fight Islamic State in 2014, and toppled an Iraqi government last year. Sistani stands against Iranian and other foreign interference in Iraq, and opposes the theocratic model of rule by Khamenei. The Iranian pick to succeed the 90-year-old Sistani died in 2018 in a setback to the Islamic Republic’s plans for Iraq.

Though Iranian influence is resented by large sections of Iraq’s Shia population, religious ties run deep. At the Hussein shrine, bullet holes from where Saddam’s soldiers gunned down Shia rebels in 1991 are framed. At the time, Iran was a haven for Shia opposition to Saddam, a Sunni.

The pilgrimage to commemorate Hussein, slain in battle in 680, is closely associated with the martyrdom of today. Next to images of Hussein on Iraqi highways are posters of Shia militiamen killed fighting Islamic State, which counted Shia Muslims among its most bitter enemies and considered them heretics. Next to them are pictures of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the godfather of those militia groups, killed alongside Soleimani by America.

Abu Mahdi and Soleimani featured this year on a banner at one stall next to the Hussein shrine offering pilgrims free tea and juice, run by Kawthar employees. Just next to the stall were the flags of Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces, the state paramilitary grouping dominated by Iran-aligned fighters. At Baghdad’s Kadhimiya shrine, one donation box is for the Forces.

Iran uses its presence to project regional strength to Sunni Muslim rival Saudi Arabia and bolster its legitimacy at home as a defender of Shia holy places, said Iraqi officials and Iran experts. Saudi officials did not comment for this article.

“Iran wants economic, religious and political influence. The best place to do that is Kerbala and Najaf,” said Mohammed Sahib al-Daraji, a lawmaker on Iraq’s finance committee. “Iran is weakened, but it’s stronger than America in Iraq.”

Ordinary Iraqis say they find themselves once more in the middle of the contest between Iran and America. The Iraqi engineering graduate, who looks older than his 30 years and wears a frayed baseball cap, resents that the only work he’s ever found in his hometown is run by the Revolutionary Guards. But he also resents that when US sanctions kicked in, that work began to dry up.

He spends most days looking for menial jobs. When he’s bored, he borrows for his bus fare and travels to Baghdad with other out-of-work engineers to hold protests demanding jobs and railing against Iraq’s ruling elite – and Iran.

“I’m now working a few days here and there on the shrine project, whenever I can get it,” the worker said. “They’ve reduced my pay by half. But I’ll work for the Iranians if it puts bread on the table – what else is there?”

Some girls said that Shitte clerics had provided them with contraceptive injections to ensure they did not become pregnant.  

Iraqi girls as young as nine-years-old are sold into “Mutah” or temporary marriages by Shitte Clerics. The clerics were filmed offering “pleasure marriages” in which men who are prohibited to have sex outside marriage, can pay a dowry for a “one hour” marriage, BBC documentary revealed.

One cleric claimed it would be “no problem at all” to marry girls as young as nine under Twelver Shitte doctrine.

The BBC investigation found that the practice is banned in Iraq but 8/10 Shitte clerics who were approached to carry it out, and one of them even offered to procure the young girls.

The religious rite “Mutah” dates back to centuries, partly intended to allow men to have a legitimate relationship while away from their wives. 

However, some Iraqi men and Shitte clerics are now abusing it to give a veneer of legitimacy to child prostitution. 

One cleric in Karbala, an important religious site in Iraq, told the undercover BBC journalist that girls as young as nine could be subject to the procedure. 

When the reporter voiced concern that he was exploiting the girl, the cleric told him—”No way”. 

The investigation showed another cleric, who was also filmed secretly. He was asked about Mutah with a 13-year-old virgin, the cleric responded “just be careful she doesn’t lose her virginity”—indicating to have oral sex with her.

Asked what happens if the girl gets hurt, the cleric said, “That’s between you and her.”
 
The cleric offered to take a photo of a girl and send it to the undercover client, and then he said, “then when you come back, she’s yours.”

The cleric also ensured that the girl wants money and you paid her—reassuring that no child abuse is taking place. 

Some girls said that Shitte clerics had provided them with contraceptive injections to ensure they did not become pregnant.  

One girl said that she hardly remembers how many times she had been married into Mutah and she is now baking on the dowry income.

Many such girls fear that after losing their virginity in Mutah, it would be difficult for them to find a permanent husband.

The Mutah practice is prohibited in Sunni Islam, and it was banned during Saddam Hussein’s time, but after the US-Invasion of Iraq which gradually helped Iran take control of the religious schools, the practice has become rampant. 

Article compiled from inputs from DailyMail and BBC.

A suicide bomber sneaked into the convention hall with a waist-bomb and detonated himself resulting in a powerful explosion leaving the bodies of Muslim scholars torn apart into tiny pieces spread all over the hall.

Afghan Ulema body has denied any media reports attempting to create rifts among Afghan Muslims by giving it a sectarian “Wahabbi vs Sunni” color.

More than 20 people seem to be in critical condition while death toll is increasing, Public Health Ministry spokesperson, Wahid Majroh said.

Interior Ministry Spokesman, Najib Danish said, “the suicide bomber was able to sneak into a wedding hall in Kabul where hundreds of religious scholars and clerics had gathered for a conference.”

So far no terrorist organization has claimed the attacks, however, a local ISIS affiliated group has targeted Muslim scholars who were associated with the government in the past. Based on the past attacks, the affiliated groups are speculated.

Kabul Police Chief, Basir Mujahid said, “Police had not been asked to provide security for the event, and that the bomber had easily slipped into the hall. Most wedding halls have private security.”

“Most unfortunately all the victims of the attack were Muslim scholars,” added Mujahid.

The waiter at the convention hall, Mohammed Muzammil, was the first-hand witness of the attack, who had gone into the back to get water-cans for the scholars when he heard a heavy explosion. No sooner he came running, he saw everything was smoggy.

“There were dead bodies all around the chairs, in large numbers”, Muzammil said.

Distressed family members and relatives of the scholars have gathered in the hospital to track the list hanged outside the hospital about those who were killed and wounded in the blast.

In the meanwhile, Police and Army have been deputed to stop all the roads leading to the blast site.

In the June ISIS attacks against Muslim scholars of Afghanistan, the attackers accused scholars of being “scholars for dollars” or “paid Mullahs” for supporting Afghan government by calling peace-talks and prosperity of the country.

The organizations like Ikhwanul-Muslimeen, Al-Qaida, ISIS, Hezbollah, and their affiliated factions deem every Muslim scholar who calls for obeying the governments fit to be killed since “scholars have aligned with the tyrants” and “eventually left Islam.”

Most of the terrorists ascribe to “Wahabbi” ideology, however, the leading Salafi scholars of Saudi Arabia like Abdulazeez Bin Baaz and Shaykh Mohammed Uthaymeen issued grand fatwas declaring suicide-missions to be absolutely forbidden and a path to eternal hellfire.

Initially, Iranian security forces surrounded and desecrated Qalamoee Sunni school in Sirik – Hormozgan province, and later arrested Molavi Ahmad Qolandarzai, Molavi Ayyub Ahmadi, and Molavi Hashem Jafarzadeh.

[File photo: Qalamoee Sunni School raided by Iranian forces]

Following their arrest, security forces also raided the scholars’ houses, and threw some of their possessions on road.

The reason for the arrests remain unknown. Iranian authorities are infamous for voilently cracking down Sunni minorities of the country.