Are Shiite Militias More Powerful than Army?

Colonel Jassim al-Mamouri says that the soldiers under his command in the province of Diyala are complaining about their jobs; he’s deployed in the Khales district there. Many of them would rather join the militias, he notes.

The militia’s system of leave is one of the attractions. For every ten days the militia members work, they get ten days of leave. For army soldiers, they work 20 days and then only get seven days of leave.

Militia members also have more sophisticated weapons and they get an unlimited amount of ammunition. His soldiers are only given 120 bullets and it’s hard for them to get more, al-Mamouri says.

However possibly the most important difference between the militias and the regular army is this: if a militia member withdraws from battle or makes a mistake, he will not be punished or subject to military discipline. Soldiers may lose their rank, have their salaries cut or suspended or be otherwise punished if they do something wrong. This difference makes the militia fighters behave in a very individualistic way and causes them to lose respect for the Iraqi army.

It is for all of these reasons that some of his men have resigned and joined the militias instead, al-Mamouri told NIQASH.

Meanwhile in Anbar, where most of the province is under the control of the IS group or their allies, the Iraqi army and Shiite Muslim militias are fighting to prevent the IS group from getting any nearer to Baghdad. But as army officer, Lieutenant Amjad Rahim, who is posted in Anbar told NIQASH, “they don’t trust us and they carry out their attacks on the IS group in secrecy, without telling us about the details.”

The militias have their own system of military intelligence as well as administrative systems and they prefer not to share any of their information with the Iraq army. In some cases they have not allowed regular soldiers to take part in certain battles and in other cases, they won’t even let the Iraqi army into areas they control.