Iraq’s Shia Militias Look To Expand Security Role In Disputed Oil Patch With Kurdistan

30 Aug 2024 Issue: 67 / 35 By: Yesar Al-Maleki

A brief incursion by Iran-backed militias into territories disputed between Baghdad and the KRG highlights the volatile security situation in the country’s north.

Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs) orchestrated a show of force over the weekend in oil-rich disputed areas between Federally-controlled Diyala and Iraqi Kurdistan’s Sulaymaniyah provinces. Early on the morning of 25 August, some 3,000 personnel from the government-funded paramilitary force moved into Kurdish-controlled areas near Gulajo in what the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) considers to be Sulaymaniyah’s Garmian subdistrict. They occupied the site of an old well at the Qamar oilfield for few hours before departing.

The incident raises much speculation as to the PMUs’ ultimate goal from the brief incursion. Acting without coordination with local Kurdish Peshmerga forces affiliated with the Sulaymaniyah-dominant Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the incident questions the strength of PUK leader Bafel Talabani’s bonds with Iran-backed militia factions of the ruling Shia Coordination Framework (SCF) political bloc in Baghdad. (CONTINUED - 878 WORDS)