All Policy Analysis by Crispin Smith

Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba proved its "axis of resistance" credentials in Syria, but its role in terrorism and repression in Iraq is more enigmatic.

Unit 10,000 is Kataib Hezbollah's premier online facade group, specializing in the publication of resistance propaganda and the development of "electronic armies" capable of hacking, information operations, and open-source intelligence gathering.

A new online facade group has undermined Kataib Hezbollah's conspiracy-laden narrative blaming the April 22 rocket strike on Iraqi Kurds.

Usbat al-Thaireen is the earliest known facade group employed to veil Kataib Hezbollah's culpability in anti-coalition operations, and its eventual shutdown may provide an important case study of such a group's complete life cycle.

Iran-backed armed groups hate being exposed as criminals in the eyes of a populace that cares deeply about rule of law, so they have turned Iraq’s legal sector into a battlespace.

Raba Allah is the "mothership" for vigilante and counter-protester groups developed by the Kataib Hezbollah network.

Sabereen News is the main social media conglomerate supporting all "resistance" actions and factions in Iraq.

The first and best-known of the facade groups that Iran-backed militias use to conceal their involvement in operations, Kataib Sarkhat al-Quds (formerly known as Ashab al-Kahf) has a particularly strong connection to AAH and, more recently, HaN.

A facade group with unique ties to Kataib Hezbollah, Alwiyat al-Waad al-Haq has been used exclusively to claim or threaten attacks against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Kataib Hezbollah is the premier militia in Iraq, operating under Iran's direct command and fielding a wide range of cells responsible for kinetic, media, and social operations, some bankrolled by the Iraqi state.

Qasem al-Jabbarin is a Kataib Hezbollah-directed facade group that specializes in roadside bombings against Iraqi supply trucks servicing the U.S. military in Iraq.

This minor facade group is occasionally used to claim bombing attacks on U.S. supply convoys and rocket attacks on the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

The muqawama are trying to put squabbles over the utility of convoy bombings behind them and are making a concerted attempt to demonstrate inter- and intra-group unity.

Even Iran’s proxies now have proxies, but authorities can still untangle and attribute their illegal acts through expanded use of rich open-source evidence.

The KH-affiliated media group Unit 10,000 planted disinformation about a nonexistent U.S. airstrike, stoked the story, and then tried to remove its fingerprints from the original "fake news."

In the year since their most iconic leaders were killed, Iran-backed militias in Iraq have been changing in crucial ways, providing rich insights into how Baghdad and its international partners should approach them in 2021.