The Iraqi military is training a former member of an Iran-backed militia, who is under US sanctions for killing protesters, to become a high-ranking officer in the army, six government, security and militia officials said.
Hussein Falih Aziz, known as Abu Zainab al-Lami, was sent to Egypt with Iraqi officers for a year-long training normally reserved for the country’s military personnel, they said.
His name, with the rank of major general, appeared on an Iraqi Ministry of Defense list of officers attending the training until next summer.
Photo: Reuters
Making al-Lami a senior officer in the army is one of the boldest moves yet by Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, a US ally, to dilute the power of Iran-backed militias in Iraq, the officials said, adding that it aligns with Washington’s stated desire to curtail Tehran’s influence across the Middle East.
An Iraqi government spokesman and Iranian officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
A source close to al-Lami confirmed his deployment to Egypt for training.
Supporters of the plan see it as a way of weakening militias that boast tens of thousands of fighters and who hold considerable sway over Iraq’s security and economy.
They have said that it would hasten the fracturing of some groups belonging to the Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation Forces; PMF), the state paramilitary umbrella organization whose security branch al-Lami has directed for years.
An Iraqi official declined to comment on al-Lami, but said that there was a plan to restructure the PMF, including providing military training to its leaders.
However, some critics have said that the move is a risky gamble that puts someone with a questionable human rights record and close ties with Iran at the heart of the Iraqi military.
They see it as another sign that the prime minister is giving concessions even to some of the most hardline, Iran-aligned officials to secure support for his government.
“The plan is to bring onside PMF leaders who are not seen as totally loyal to Iran and to ready them through this military training for positions inside the military,” a security official said.
“Al-Lami will be given a senior position when training is completed,” added the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
He did not specify what post al-Lami would take up.
Egyptian military officials denied that al-Lami was among a batch of Iraqi officers undergoing training in Egypt, but one Egyptian security source said that al-Lami was in Egypt last month, without elaborating.
Al-Lami is the head of security for Iraq’s state paramilitary grouping and a one-time member of the Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia.
The source close to him denied he had any formal ties to Iran or the militias it supports.
Last year, he was put under US sanctions for his alleged role in ordering the use of lethal force against anti-government protesters.
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
TOWERING FIGURE: To Republicans she was emblematic of the excesses of the liberal elite, but lawmakers admired her ability to corral her caucus through difficult votes Nancy Pelosi, a towering figure in US politics, a leading foe of US President Donald Trump and the first woman to serve as US House of Representatives speaker, on Thursday announced that she would step down at the next election. Admired as a master strategist with a no-nonsense leadership style that delivered for her party, the 85-year-old Democrat shepherded historic legislation through the US Congress as she navigated a bitter partisan divide. In later years, she was a fierce adversary of Trump, twice leading his impeachment and stunning Washington in 2020 when she ripped up a copy of his speech to the
RSS