Iran-backed militias struggle to resist US pressure
Feeling the burden of US sanctions on Iran, the Popular Mobilization Units are flexing their muscles in Iraq, trying to strengthen their position.
As the United States tightens the noose on the Iranian economy, Iran-backed Iraqi militias are feeling the pain more than ever.
The US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed sanctions June 12 on an Iraq-based company that is believed to be a financial conduit for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Quds Force in particular.
The company — South Wealth Resources Company, or, in Arabic, the Manabea Tharwat al-Janoob General Trading Company — is headed by two Iraq-based individuals, Makki Kazim al-Asadi and Mohammed Husayn al-Hasani, who have also been sanctioned by the US Treasury. The United States accuses both individuals, as well as Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), of receiving commission payments for contracts with the South Wealth Resources Company.
According to the US Treasury, the company and its two associates traffic weapons worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Iran-backed militias in Iraq. They have covertly facilitated IRGC access to the Iraqi financial system to assist the corps in evading US sanctions.
