Atabat Leader from Muthanna Takes on Muqawama Interests

Recent months have seen raised levels of public discord between different arms of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in Muthanna province, the location of large land grants to the PMF’s Muhandis General Company (MGC). The focus of the discord has been the person of Hamid al-Yassiri, the commander Ansar al-Marjaiya, the PMF 44^th Brigade, who is a senior commander in the so-called Atabat (the shrine militias that take direction from Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and the Ministry of Defense, not the PMF Commission).

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Yassiri pushes back on new Coordination Framework-led council in Muthanna

In early and mid-June, Hamid al-Yassiri mobilized supporters to seek the removal of the governor and provincial council and lobbied PM Mohammed Shia al-Sudani to appoint a military governor for the province. Yassiri is a very well-connected religious-military leader and his call for action against the newly-formed local government (on allegations of corruption) gained him an audience with Sudani on June 9. Sudani made several promises to Yassiri, including allocating funds to the province to be spent by a committee from the PM’s office, which neither the governor nor the council could access. While Yassiri was in Baghdad, he met several officials, including the Hussein Moanes, leader of US-designated terrorist movement Kataib Hezbollah’s political front, the Hoquq Movement. Yassiri seems to have got his way when his return to Muthanna was complemented by a meeting with the head of the Badr-run Iraqi Commission of Integrity (Figure 1) and subsequent judicial summonses against officials in the province, including the governor’s assistant.

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Reawakened spat between Yassiri and Qais al-Khazali

A new front then opened on July 9, 2024 between Yassiri and the Iran-backed muqawama when a television anchor on Djila TV asked Yassiri about an old feud involving Qais al-Khazali. The conversation related to August 13, 2021 accusations made by Yassiri in Rumaytha, Muthanna, that the muqawama had killed peaceful demonstrators in the name of Shia Islam. Alluding to Iran, Yassiri accused those militias of treason and receiving their orders from abroad, and predicted that Iraq’s Supreme Leader would one day order Yassiri’s killing.

At the time, on August 15, 2021, U.S.-designated terrorist Qais al-Khazali (head of the terrorist group Asaib Ahl al-Haq, AAH) made an angry response in which he accused Yassiri of misinterpreting religious teachings related to Imam Hussein bin Ali. On January 17 2022, Yassiri’s resident in Rumaytha was raked with bullets, albeit without causing injury.

When asked about the disagreement with Qais al-Khazali, Yassiri did not hold back from reigniting the feud: “I tell Qais Khazali that you have ideological connections with the guardian of the jurist (Iranian supreme leader), and we don’t have a problem with that, but designing political decisions with external enforcement I consider it treason; I consider it treason. Whatever is forced politically on the Iraqi politicians from abroad, I consider treason.” (Figure 2)  

Yassiri furthermore underlined the difference between the Iran-backed Coordination Framework and both the Atabat and the Sadrist movement of Moqtada al-Sadr. “The commonality between us and the Sadrists,” he noted, “is that the Sadrist movement is a national movement that believes in running the country within the borders. The nationalist things I call for and not listening to what comes from abroad bring us very close to the brothers in the Sadrist movement.”

The interview attracted widespread attention since no one nowadays risks addressing Qais Khazali directly in the media in this way, not even Moqtada al-Sadr. Yassiri is now throwing down challenges to multiple poles within the Coordination Framework – to Qais al-Khazali and AAH (who control the deputy governorship of Muthanna via Ahmad Daryul), to KH and the Muhandis General Company projects in Muthanna, and to Muthanna governor and Coordination Framework (Fadhila) politician Muhannad al-Itab. Charismatic and apparently fearless, and risking his life to speak out against the militias, Yassiri’s fate is worth watching closely.