Flashback: Soleimani-Linked Faction Claimed over ‘6,000 Attacks’ Against U.S., Coalition Forces in About 5 Years
Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (AAH) — a faction of the Baghdad-sanctioned Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) that answered to the late Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani killed by American forces in Iraq on Thursday — reportedly claimed to be behind 6,000 attacks against U.S. and Coalition forces between 2006 and 2011.
Soleimani has American blood on his hands, the Institute for the Study of War reported in 2012.
Under President Donald Trump, the U.S. State Department designated a PMF faction and its leader — Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaban (AAH offshoot) and Akram al-Kabi — as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs).
The State Department is also trying to deem other PMF factions, including AAH, official terrorists.
AAH continues to threaten American troops in Iraq, demanding that they leave.
In November 2016, the Iraqi Parliament legalized the Iran-allied PMF as a component of the U.S.-funded and trained Iraqi Security Forces for helping fight against the Sunni Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).
The PMF includes many of the militiamen and terrorists like members of the Kataib Hezbollah (KH) who fought and killed Americans after the 2003 invasion. The U.S. has deemed KH the group responsible for recently killing the American contractor and ordering the destruction of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad at the end of last year.
Both KH and AAH are heavily linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Quds-Force (IRGC-QF) led by Gen. Soleimani. The Trump administration has designated the IRGC-QF a terrorist group.
Several U.S. officials consider AAH and KH to be terrorists. In 2012, the Institute for the Study of War reported:
AAH has close connections to Iran. The Lebanese Hezbollah operative Ali Mussa Daqduq, who was detained by coalition forces in 2007 and released from Iraqi custody in November 2012, provided organized training to AAH fighters. He reported to Youssef Hashim, the head of Lebanese Hezbollah Special Operations; the latter reported to Abdul Reza Shahlai (AKA Hajji yussef), the director of Iranian Qods Force External Operations. Abdul Reza Shahlai was the mastermind behind the disrupted 2011 plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the United States in Washington, DC. All reported to Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Qods-Force (IRGC-QF)
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Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (AAH), also known as “the League of the Righteous,” has also re-emerged. This Iranian-backed, Shi’a militant organization has claimed responsibility for over 6,000 attacks against U.S. and Coalition forces in Iraq since its creation in 2006. AAH carried out spectacular and highly sophisticated operations during the peak of the Iraq War, including the October 10, 2006 mortar attack on American Forward Operating Base Falcon; the May 6, 2006 downing of a British Lynx helicopter in Basra, resulting in five British fatalities; the January 20, 2007 attack on the Karbala Provincial Headquarters, resulting in the capture and then murder of five American soldiers; and the May 29, 2007 attack on the Iraqi Finance Ministry, which ended in the kidnapping of five British contractors, four of whom were killed in captivity.
Along with Kata’ib Hezbollah (KH) and the Promised Day Brigades (PDB), AAH is an Iraqi Shi’a militant group funded, armed, and trained by the Qods Force, the external Special Operations branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp.
Until recently, the U.S. military continued to fight ISIS alongside the PMF. Not all PMF are Iran-allied Shiites. The group includes Kurds and Christians.
Breitbart News has repeatedly asked the Pentagon if it considers the PMF a threat in Iraq, but the Department of Defense has said fighting the Iran-allied force is not part of their mission. That may have recently changed.
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