legal basis of the hashd

Tags: Knight et al - Honored, Not Contained, hashd al-shaabi (PMF)

• Formally part of Iraqi and and also arising from the fatwa of Sistani
  • Continuing to propose a parallel legislation is silly, pmf is already regulated by the same military laws
  • Started from nouri al-maliki’s popular army
    • sons of iraq framework
    • sahwa (awakening) movement
    • existing fasail in Iraq
      • asa’ib ahl al-haqq (aah)
      • kataib hezbollah (kh)
      • kataib sayyid al-shuhada
      • harakat hezbollah al-nujaba
      • kataib al-imam ali
      • kataib jund al-imam (brigade 6)
  • After Fallujah, nouri al-maliki aimed to raise the Popular Defense Brigades (Saraya al-Difa al-Shaabi)
    • also driven by abu mahdi al-muhandis and kataib hezbollah (kh)
  • Post mosul
    • After June 11, 2014, cabinet degree 301 (2014)
    • On June 13, 2014 sistani issues his famous fatwa
      • notably sistani has never used the term “hashd” and prefers to use mutataween (volunteers)
  • “Defense” hashd
    • Multiple minor groups deployed primarily in baghdad and nominally affiliated with the ministry of defense (iraq)
    • recieve around 2,000 billets and around 15k people have rotated through
    • 56 platoon size checkpoints unit under Baghdad Operations Command
    • chronic lack of payroll
    • hashd commission
  • national guard law (2015)
  • executive order 91 (2016)
  • popular mobilization comission law (2016)
  • executive order 85 (2018)
  • adil abdul-mahdi issued 4 “orders”
    1. Foreign forces not allowed to act on soil without permission
    2. State from the provcine or outside prevented from exercising
    3. Actions of Iraqi or non-Iraqi armed forces outside the armed forces and commander-in-chief is prohibited
    4. Any action of military should be known by the military
  • Aimed at rocket attacks against US
  • executive order 237 (2019)
  • executive order 328 (2019)
  • executive order 331 (2019)

Observations

• Shia-led army has been growing for some time
• widely conceived of needing a “separate but equal” status
• many advocates do not want it to be folded within an established ministry
  • comfort at the fact that it answers directly to PM
• successive iraqi prime ministers have felt like it was necessary to assert their authority
  • abu mahdi al-muhandis’s meddeling
• roles and missions have the hashd have not been defined anywhere