Hashd al-Shaabi should be part of Iraqi security bodies: Ayatollah Sistani

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) - Shia paramilitary Hashd al-Shaabi should be incorporated into Iraqi security bodies, the top Shia cleric said on Friday.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in a delivered message on Friday at the holy city of Karbala said the paramilitary also known as People Mobilization Forces (PMF) should come under the Iraqi government.

The Iranian-trained Shia paramilitary groups who contributed to the war against Islamic State (IS) militants currently have access to the weapon they were provided. 

In a message delivered at the Friday sermon in the holy city of Kerbala through one of his representatives, Sistani said all weapons used in fighting the insurgents should be brought under the control of the Iraqi government.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is also in favor of the suggestion as he wishes to prevent commanders of the militias from using power and clout they acquired during the war in elections due on May 12.

Sistani is known for the religious decree (fatwa) that urged Iraqis to volunteer after government’s armed forces collapsed in 2014 and IS took over.

“The victory over Daesh doesn’t mean the end of the battle with terrorism,” Sistani’s representative Sheikh Abdulmehdi al-Karbalai said, using an Arab acronym for Islamic State and mentioning the existence of “sleeper cells.”

“The security apparatus should be supported by the fighters who took part in the war on Daesh,” he added in the sermon broadcast on state TV.

“It is necessary to absorb the fighters in the official and constitutional structures,” Sistani said in the sermon, adding that “the fatwa should not be used to achieve political aims.”

Abadi in a statement from his office welcomed Sistani's call "against using volunteers and fighters in political campaigning.”

Kurdish politicians and Iraq's Sunnis have urged Abadi to disarm the PMF after he declared victory over IS last week.

Reports show the Shia militia have committed widespread abuses including extra-judicial killings, kidnappings and displacing non-Shia populations, and in effect report to Tehran, not the government in Baghdad.

Additionally, the head of the Warka bloc in the Iraqi Parliament Joseph Silewa on Thursday accused Hashd al-Shaabi of sexually assaulting Christians in Nineveh Province, northern Iraq.

Hashd al-Shaabi says abuses were isolated incidents and culprits have been punished.

Two of the most important Iranian-backed paramilitary leaders, Hadi al-Amiri and Qais al-Khazali, announced this week they were putting their militias under Abadi’s orders.

Their decision to formally separate their armed and political wings could pave the way for them to contest the elections, possibly as part of a broader alliance close to Iran.

Iran provided training and supplied weapons to the most powerful PMF groups including Amiri’s Badr Organisation and Khazali’s Asaib Ahl al-Haq.

The Iraqi parliament last year voted to establish the PMF as a separate military corps that reports to Abadi in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the armed forces.