US labels deputy head of Iraq’s PMU a terrorist

Jan 13, 2021

The USA labeled the chief of workers of Iraq’s Fashionable Mobilization Models a chosen world terrorist Wednesday within the outgoing Trump administration’s newest try and isolate Iran’s international proxies earlier than leaving workplace.

Abdul Aziz al-Muhammadawi, often known as Abu Fadak, serves because the deputy head of the PMU. The group formally lies beneath the authority of the federal authorities in Baghdad; nonetheless, most of the PMU militias obtain help from Iran and have ties to the Quds Drive of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Abu Fadak is one among them, the US State Division mentioned Wednesday. The influential Shiite official was as soon as secretary-general of Kataib Hezbollah, which the USA designated a terrorist group in 2009.

The influential Shiite militia carried out ambushes on American forces through the US occupation of Iraq and has claimed numerous different violent assaults since. Washington says the group was key to violently suppressing pro-democracy protests throughout Iraq final 12 months and does the bidding of Iran.

The State Division accused Abu Fadak on Wednesday of working with the Quds Drive to “reshape official Iraqi state safety establishments” to “help Iran’s malign actions, together with the protection of the Assad regime in Syria.

The division additionally accused him of involvement in “abductions of lots of of males” in areas liberated from the Islamic State (IS). “These people stay lacking to this present day,” the State Division assertion learn.

In a separate assertion Wednesday, the US Treasury Division appeared to accuse Abu Fadak of hyperlinks with IS. A spokesperson for the Treasury didn’t instantly return Al-Monitor’s request for remark.

The USA additionally unveiled sanctions Wednesday on two monetary organizations it mentioned had been managed by Iran’s Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: the Astan Quds Razavi and Execution of Imam Kohmeini’s Order. The State Division mentioned the ostensibly charitable organizations management main swaths of the Iranian financial system.

Earlier this week the Trump administration sanctioned the chairman of Iraq’s PMU, Faleh al-Fayadh, beneath an addendum to the International Magnitsky Act, which permits the USA to sanction international figures based mostly on allegations of human rights abuses.

US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin accused Fayadh of “directing and supervising the homicide of peaceable Iraqi demonstrators” and “waging a violent marketing campaign towards Iraqi democracy and civil society.”

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Kadhimi ousted Fayadh as Iraq’s nationwide safety adviser final 12 months.

The Trump administration assassinated former Quds Drive commander Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani in a Baghdad drone strike in January 2020. Additionally killed was Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy PMU chief whom Abu Fadak has succeeded.