On January 3, shortly after killing Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and Kataib Hezbollah commander Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis with a drone strike, the United States also reportedly targeted Shubul Al Zaidi, leader of Kataib Al Imam Ali, the “Imam Ali Battalions,” an Iranian-backed paramilitary group in Iraq that he founded with Al Muhandis.

There is no doubt that the Imam Ali Battalions are a bunch of war criminals. One of the militia’s most prominent commanders, Abu Azrael, is known for mutilating corpses and roasting people alive. Al Zaidi himself has been filmed waving around severed heads. Kataib Hezbollah, too, is responsible for hundreds of disappearances and extrajudicial killings. Al Muhandis and Al Zaidi killed Americans—and inflicted far deeper suffering on countless Iraqis.



Targeting leaders of terrorist paramilitaries seems like a clear-cut mission for the U.S. military, but in these cases it exposed the stark hypocrisy of America’s wars: While Al Muhandis and Al Zaidi fought the U.S. on the battlefield, these killers—and many others like them—were also financial beneficiaries and partners of the American military-industrial complex.



Over the past two years investigating America’s war in Iraq, I’ve spoken to dozens of people in the military contracting and shipping business, along with current and former intelligence and government officials from both countries. The sources for this article have knowledge of questionable U.S. dealings with murderous paramilitaries that had publicly been declared enemies of freedom in the region. All requested anonymity to speak, because of the sensitivity of what they had to say and the legal and physical dangers associated with speaking out. These are but a few of the myriad allegations of U.S. double-dealing with Iraqi militias and the oligarchs who support them still being tracked by the Government Accountability Project, where I work. Collectively, they undercut the remaining moral standing that America has tried to maintain in its operations in Iraq.

Before the U.S. bombed Al Zaidi, it built bases for his death squad.

Before the U.S. bombed Al Zaidi, for example, it built bases for his death squad. It was during the Islamic State’s invasion of Iraq in 2014. Kataib Al Imam Ali was, at that point, the enemy of the U.S.’s enemy, a Shia militia fighting against ISIS, and so it began to camp out inside the walls of Balad Air Base, a former U.S.-held base near Baghdad, now run by Iraq’s air force.