For instance, in October, former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who considers himself a PMU founder, said the operation to retake Mosul and Ninevah province from IS — known as We Are Coming, Ninevah — "also means We Are Coming, Raqqa; We Are Coming, Aleppo; and We Are Coming, Yemen.”
These statements seem to be a response to the US escalation against Iran, which began after US President Donald Trump was elected in November and is echoed in Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile, some Iran-influenced Shiite factions fighting under the PMU umbrella are criticizing the idea of undying loyalty to the Iranian regime and its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iraqi militias loyal to Iran, such as al-Nojaba, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Saraya al-Kharasani and Kataib Hezbollah, play a dual role in Iraq and the region. On one hand, they operate under the PMU, which is part of the Iraqi armed forces. On the other hand, the militias are involved in the Syrian war, following direct orders from Iranian leadership.
The secretary-general of Saraya al-Kharasani, Ali al-Yasiri, said in a Feb. 24 TV interview, “We have brigades fighting under the banner of the PMU, but we also have three other brigades outside of the PMU." He added, “Wherever we are needed, we will be. We operate based on the resistance’s best interest.”
And it is clear that Iran’s supreme leader is the one who determines “the resistance’s best interest."
A report published March 10 by The Independent confirms the presence of the IRGC and allied Shiite armed groups in the part of the Golan Heights controlled by the Syrian regime. Commenting on Iranian action near the 1967 armistice line of the Golan Heights, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a March 9 meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, “We do not want Islamic terrorism led by Iran to replace Sunni Islamist terrorism [IS].”
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