High stakes: Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani confronted KH on 9 August, breaking a longstanding pattern of political caution. Image: Tasnim News Agency / Wikimedia Commons Fears over leadership decapitation, calls for restraint from the Iraqi government, and discouragement from Iran were behind the militias’ decision not to get …

The post-2003 security landscape in Iraq has seen the proliferation of dozens of militias identifying with Shiite Islam. Many of these actors are integrated into the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) – a paramilitary group established in 2014 to counter the Islamic State and later incorporated into the Iraqi state forces …

In late October, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) announced the unilateral withdrawal of its fighters from Turkey to northern Iraq. The announcement came on the heels of PKK fighters symbolically burning weapons in northern Iraq in July. In response, Turkey praised the move and is reportedly preparing legislation to allow …