Thousands mourn Iran-backed paramilitary linchpin in southern Iraq
BASRA, Iraq/BAGHDAD: Thousands of Iraqis packed the streets of Basra on Tuesday (Jan 7) to mourn militia leader Jamal Jaafar Ibrahimi, known as Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, killed last week by a US air strike alongside his Iranian mentor Qasem Soleimani.
His body arrived in his hometown of Basra after funeral processions elsewhere in Iraq and Iran. Its next stop, the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf, is where he will be buried.
Last Friday's drone strike at Baghdad airport has united Iraqis in outrage and prompted parliament to offer support for a government plan to expel US and other foreign troops, amid fears of a wider conflict in the Middle East.
Muhandis, who founded the Shi'ite Kataib Hezbollah militia in 2003 after the US-led invasion of Iraq, was de facto leader of the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), an umbrella body of all Iraq's mostly Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias.
He was also the top Iraqi adviser to Soleimani, who commanded the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' (IRGC) Qods Force, charged with extending Iran's military influence beyond its borders, often through proxy forces.
Muhandis had near-mythical status among these groups, and his daughter told Lebanon's al-Mayadeen TV that Soleimani had been "his brother, beloved and dear".
Iraqi people gather during a funeral procession for militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was killed by U.S. air strike at Baghdad airport, in Basra, Iraq, January 7, 2020. REUTERS/Essam al-Sudani
Fanar Haddad, Senior Research Fellow at the National University of Singapore's Middle East Institute, said Muhandis was near irreplaceable for the PMF, a diffuse grouping without the robust structures of the IRGC and the Quds Force.
"Muhandis was overseeing the process of centralising and institutionalising (the PMF) within the Iraqi state and had made significant gains in that direction," he said.
"WE WILL AVENGE"
About 30,000 people thronged the streets of Basra waving Iraqi and militia flags and chanting "No, no America!" and "No, no Israel!".
"We will avenge Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and Soleimani by forcing American troops to leave Iraq," said Shi'ite cleric Muhsin al-Hakeem, standing beside the convoy carrying Muhandis's casket.
A poster of Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was killed in an air strike at Baghdad airport, is put up at residential buildings near the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, Iraq January 6, 2020. Handout via REUTERS
