Iraqi militant Qayis Khazali warned us about Iran. We ignored him.

[endicom]

Long War Journal
Bill Roggio
Sept. 7, 2018

Iran has its tentacles all over Iraq, and the United States has no one to blame but itself. It is a bipartisan failure dating back to the March 2003 invasion. Even after the Bush administration adjusted its course in Iraq, waging a large counterinsurgency campaign, the United States was so eager to wash its hands of a messy insurgency that it did little to roll back Iran’s gains. Nearly seven years after President Obama’s disastrous withdrawal from Iraq in December 2011, Iran and its Shia militias wield an enormous amount of power, and the militias’ political arms are set to play a major role in Iraq’s next government.

The seeds of this failure can be seen in the interrogation transcripts of Qayis Khazali, the leader of an Iranian-backed militia, one of what the U.S. military used to call the “Special Groups.” Khazali’s interrogation logs were declassified by U.S. Central Command and released via the American Enterprise Institute on August 30. The hundreds of pages of files are part of the U.S. government’s push to designate Khazali, a militant with American blood on his hands, a terrorist. Khazali is now a politician, and his group, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, holds 15 seats in the Iraqi parliament. His rise was no accident. Khazali, who was in U.S. custody from 2007 to the end of 2009, told his interrogators then that Iran had long-term plans to infiltrate Iraqi society at all levels. And the Iranians have done just that.

The Special Groups were paramilitary units embedded in Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army. Sadr has long been a Shia powerbroker in southern Iraq. The newly released files confirm that Khazali, who worked for Sadr, came to view his superior as a rival. They also confirm that Sadr’s Mahdi Army received funding, weapons, training, and advice from Iran and its chief proxy, Lebanon’s Hezbollah. The Shia militants primarily targeted coalition forces, killing hundreds of American soldiers. Khazali himself led such operations.

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[TomSea]

Iran accused of hijacking Basra protests after a week of violence that shook Iraq

    Rival Shiite factions trade blame for who drove the burning of buildings
    Muqtada Al-Sadr in talks to try and defuse the crisis that has left 12 dead

 BAGHDAD: Even for a week of violence and bloodshed the discovery of four bodies dumped in a street in central Basra on Saturday morning sent shockwaves through the city.

The four men were identified as followers of Muqtada Al-Sadr, the powerful Iraqi cleric who has masterminded an anti-Iranian coalition poised to take control the country’s parliament.

Two of the dead had participated in the protests that started as a new wave of demonstrations against woeful services and corruption in the province that provides most of Iraq’s oil.

More at: http://www.arabnews.com/node/1369051/middle-east