The US sanctioned Iraqi militias, but will the militias be affected? - analysis

Four Iraqi militias were designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations last week by the US Department of State.
The Iranian-backed militias Harakat al-Nujaba, Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, Harakat Ansar Allah al-Awfiya, and Kataib al-Imam Ali were previously designated Specially Designated Global Terrorists, the State Department said.
Iran supports and enables these groups to “carry out attacks across Iraq,” it said.
 
The designation is in line with a memorandum by US President Donald Trump in February to exercise maximum pressure on Iran.

The designation of these groups adds to a growing list of Iranian-backed militias in Iraq that have been designated or sanctioned by the US. This raises a question about how effective these designations are and also what may come next.
 
The US has established a number of lists of designated and sanctioned groups. Regarding Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO), for instance, “the Bureau of Counterterrorism in the State Department continually monitors the activities of terrorist groups active around the world to identify potential targets for designation,” the State Department said.
 
Bureau of Counterterrorism evaluations are used to designate groups once certain statutory criteria are met, it said.
“If the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury, decides to make the designation, Congress is notified,” it added.

 
After an organization is designated, it may seek judicial review. The US believes that FTO designations can help efforts to curb terrorism financing and also may stigmatize or isolate a group.
 
The US Treasury Department maintains a list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons, which it calls the SDN List. There are also other sanctions administered by the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
 
“As part of its enforcement efforts, OFAC publishes a list of individuals and companies owned or controlled by, or acting for or on behalf of, targeted countries,” the Treasury Department said. “It also lists individuals, groups, and entities, such as terrorists and narcotics traffickers designated under programs that are not country-specific.
 
Collectively, such individuals and companies are called 'Specially Designated Nationals,’ or ‘SDNs.’ Their assets are blocked, and US persons are generally prohibited from dealing with them.”
 
The US also has a list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT). These groups are designated pursuant to the authority of US Executive Order 13224 of September 23, 2001, in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
 
These groups or people have property and interests blocked pursuant to US law, which is rooted in the 2001 order.
Transactions with them are also prohibited, and these groups are sanctioned by the State Department and the Treasury. The SDN list includes thousands of listings, whereas the FTO list has fewer than 100 entities.

The Iranian-backed militias in Iraq are a unique type of group. Today, they come under the umbrella of the Hashd al-Shaabi, or Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF).
 
The PMF was founded in 2014 after a fatwa by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who called on Iraqis to mobilize against ISIS. Many of those who formed militias to fight ISIS were Shi’ites. Many of these Shi’ites also organized under banners of militias that already existed or had ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
 
The IRGC’s Quds Force, led by Qasem Soleimani, was closely involved in backing the PMF. The ranks of the PMF militias swelled to as many as 100,000 fighters.
 
They also entered Syria to fight ISIS, then formed a corridor of Iran-backed units stretching from Iran via Baghdad to Albukamal in Syria, and then to Lebanon, where they linked up with Hezbollah.

Hezbollah was the model for these groups, as was the IRGC. In 2018, after the defeat of ISIS, the PMF became an official paramilitary force of Iraq, and its salaries are administered by government offices.
 
It has close ties to the Iraqi Interior Ministry. This is partly due to the presence of Badr Corps members who infiltrated Iraqi institutions over the past two decades. They also infiltrated the federal police, thus forming a nexus of Iranian-backed power.
 
Iranian-backed groups in Iraq have killed Americans for decades. The PMF militias have targeted the US increasingly since 2019, and they have targeted the autonomous Kurdistan Region in northern Iraq, as well as being involved in drone attacks and also the kidnapping and murder of people.
 
Israeli and Russian citizen Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Princeton researcher, was kidnapped in March 2023 by Kataib Hezbollah. She was released earlier this month, following 900 days of captivity, after the Trump administration worked to free her.
 
Kataib Hezbollah, which kidnapped her, has had all the US sanctions thrown at it, including being on the SDN, SDGT, and FTO lists. Trump ordered a drone strike that killed Soleimani and Kataib Hezbollah leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in January 2020.

Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, which is now on the FTO list, has been an SDGT since 2023 and on the SDN list since the same year. It maintains a brigade within the PMF and is close to Hezbollah, the former Assad regime, and Badr.
 
Badr has a dozen brigades in the PMF and is the largest of the militias. It is also the oldest and has had ties with Iran for decades. It has been sanctioned by the UAE but not the US.
 
Asaib Ahl al-Haq, whose leader threatened to work with Iran and Hezbollah to attack Israel, has several brigades in the PMF and is on the SDGT, SDN, and FTO lists.
 
Kataib al-Imam Ali, which is now on the FTO list, is also on the SDN and SDGT lists.
 
Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, which is now on the FTO list, is already on the SDGT list.
 
Harakat Ansar Allah al-Awfiya, which is now on the FTO list, is on the SDGT list.
 
The designations of these groups has taken time. Asaib Ahl al-Haq was designated an FTO in 2020. Kataib Hezbollah was named a FTO in 2009. Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba was named an SDGT in 2019, and members of AAH were designated individually in 2020.

Although there are dozens of brigades within the PMF, it does appear that the US has now sanctioned most of the larger and dangerous groups under multiple layers of designations.
 
There are likely two schools of thought on sanctions. One argues that you don’t sanction everything, because you want to increase pressure and incentivize change. Thus, one wouldn’t sanction the whole PMF, or groups like Badr, because the theory is one wants to be able to work with Iraq.
 
Iraq’s government is deeply entwined with the PMF. If one wants to untangle it, then it’s better to sanction the PMF piece by piece and encourage the government to distance itself from the bad pieces. However, this didn’t work over the past two decades since sanctions began to be applied to these groups.
 
Another argument would say that all these groups should be sanctioned, and that would bring the hammer down on Baghdad and stop the appeasement. Baghdad might then change course.
 
If you sanction everything, however, then you can’t add to the sanctions. All one can do then is start carrying out military operations.
 
In the past, sanctions have enabled military strikes on these groups. It remains to be seen whether the new FTO designations will change the behavior of Baghdad or Harakat al-Nujaba, Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, Harakat Ansar Allah al-Awfiya, and Kataib al-Imam Ali.
 
Esther Davis and Leo Feierberg Better contributed to this report.