Powerful Iran-backed militia clashes with Iraqi troops in Baghdad over government appointment
The militants entered the building of an office linked to the Ministry of Agriculture where the new director was holding a meeting with employees 'causing panic among the employees, who immediately called for security assistance', the Interior Ministry said.
When units of the Federal Police and Emergency Response Teams arrived they 'came under direct fire from the gunmen', it said. A number of security troops were injured and at least 14 militants arrested, it said.
The Joint Operation Command identified the arrested militants as affiliated to Brigades 45 and 46 in the Popular Mobilisation Forces, an umbrella group of paramilitaries of influential Tehran-backed Shiite militias.
When ISIS swept through large parts in northern and western Iraq, US-trained security troops collapsed in a humiliating defeat. To face the advancing extremist militants, thousands of Shiite volunteers answered the call to arms by Iraq's influential Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani.
At the time, the government of former prime minister Nouri Al Maliki had already formed the PMF to organise and supervise the volunteers as parallel forces. Shortly after its formation, several powerful Iran-backed Shiite militias joined the PMF. By then, some of them were fighting alongside Bashar Al Assad's forces in Syria 's civil war.
During the fight against ISIS, some of these militias were accused of human rights breaches against civilians in Sunni areas. The Iraqi government and PMF acknowledged these breaches as 'individual acts'.
The US has blacklisted several PMF leaders in a bid to increase pressure on Iran's proxies in Iraq, sanctioning senior figures between 2019 and 2021 under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.
Since declaring ISIS defeated in late 2017, the PMF and mainly Tehran-aligned militias have emerged as a powerful force in Iraq and grown more defiant towards the government and opposition groups.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The National
an hour ago
- The National
Trump ally says Israeli military will 'take Gaza down like we did Tokyo and Berlin'
US Senator Lindsey Graham said on Sunday that Israel is preparing to intensify its military campaign in Gaza, comparing the strategy to Allied operations on Tokyo and Berlin at the end of Second World War. 'What we're talking about today is a change in strategy. I think President (Donald) Trump has come to believe, and I certainly come to believe there's no way you're going to negotiate an end of this war with Hamas,' Mr Graham told NBC in an interview. 'Hamas is a terrorist organisation who is chartered to destroy the State of Israel. They're religious Nazis. They hold Israeli hostages.' Mr Graham, from South Carolina, said that Israel has concluded that dismantling Hamas is the only way to ensure its security. 'If they're going to do in Gaza what we did in Tokyo and Berlin – take the place by force, then start over again, presenting a better future for the Palestinians, hopefully having the Arabs take over the West Bank and Gaza,' he said. 'I think going forward … you're going to see a change in tactics, a full military effort by Israel to take Gaza down,' he said. On Thursday, Mr Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, said Hamas' latest response to ceasefire proposals showed a 'lack of desire' to reach a truce. Mr Witkoff said Washington will look at 'alternative options,' without elaborating. Mr Trump told reporters on Sunday that Israel would have to make a decision on next steps in Gaza, adding that he did not know what would happen after moves by Israel to pull out of ceasefire and hostage-release negotiations with the Hamas militant group. Mr Trump underscored the importance of securing the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, saying they had suddenly 'hardened' up on the issue. 'They don't want to give them back, and so Israel is going to have to make a decision,' he said the start of a meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at his golf property in Turnberry, Scotland.
The National
2 hours ago
- The National
Syria expected to hold parliamentary election in September, official says
Syria is expected to hold its first parliamentary election under the new government in September, the head of the electoral process said. Voting for the People's Assembly should take place from September 15-20, the head of Syria's High Elections Committee Mohamed Taha Al Ahmad said. President Ahmad Al Shara"emphasised the necessity of proceeding with the electoral process in all Syrian governorates, rejecting division, which is denounced by all Syrians," he said. All those who "sided with the criminals and supported them" and individuals "who advocate for division, sectarianism and factionalism" will be excluded from running in the vote. He added that the number of parliamentary seats will increase from 150 to 210, with the president appointing 70 members. This decision is likely to come under intense scrutiny following President Al Shara's decision to appoint two brothers, Maher and Hazem, to top government positions. Mr Ahmad said the international community and independent election monitors will be invited to oversee the poll. The vote will be the first after the fall of Bashar Al Assad's regime. Mr Al Shara, leader of a former Al Qaeda offshoot, came to power in Syria after guerrilla fighters he led brought down Assad in December, after more than 13 years of civil war. The announcement came as the country was gripped by a series of violent incidents in recent weeks. A Syrian committee investigating sectarian violence in the Alawite heartland said on Tuesday it had identified 298 suspects implicated in serious violations during bloodshed that left at least 1,426 members of the religious minority dead in March. The findings come after fresh violence involving the country's Druze community, raising further questions over the new government's ability to manage sectarian tensions.
Crypto Insight
3 hours ago
- Crypto Insight
Wrench attacks drive crypto investors to centralized custodians
Crypto custodians are reporting increased interest in their services amid the rising frequency of so-called '$5 wrench attacks' on cryptocurrency traders, investors and project leaders. In the last year, several high-profile wrench attacks — physical attempts to steal someone's crypto — have targeted prominent investors and business executives in the blockchain industry. The crypto mantra of 'not your keys, not your coins' has lost its power among some investors who fear for their personal safety. Cold wallets may offer full control over digital assets, but they also present a single point of attack. As crypto adoption grows, and wrench attacks persist with the proliferation of more high-value crypto investors, custodians are seeing a shift in preference from self-custody to institutional control. Crypto wrench attacks drive security demand Wrench attacks are nothing new. Jameson Lopp, a Bitcoin advocate and chief technology officer of Bitcoin wallet Casa, published a GitHub repository logging hundreds of such incidents since 2014 — and those were only the ones reported in the news. In the last two to three years, as crypto adoption has sped up and become more mainstream than ever, attacks have grown more public and sophisticated. In January 2025, the founder of crypto wallet Ledger and his wife, David and Amandine Balland, were kidnapped, taken to separate locations and held at ransom. Just months later, the daughter of an exchange founder barely fought off attackers who attempted to kidnap her in a van on the streets of Paris. Concern over the rise in attacks and their similar methods led French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau to meet with cryptocurrency professionals to discuss the issue. As concern over these attacks grows, crypto custodians are noticing an uptick in interest in their services. Emma Shi, over-the-counter and institutional sales director of HashKey, which offers custody and exchange services, told Cointelegraph, 'We're absolutely seeing rising retail anxiety translate into meaningful inflows. Wealthier retail investors are increasingly approaching regulated custodians after high-profile cases like the recent Manhattan kidnapping, where physical coercion was used to access private keys.' Shi said HashKey's custody business has noted increased interest in storage from 'family offices, crypto-native high-net-worth individuals and even those with nest eggs that are large enough to be vulnerable to theft.' Cold wallets have long been lauded by crypto advocates as a way to give investors full control over their assets and to keep them maximally secure offline. However, this single key also provides a 'single point of failure,' per Wade Wang, CEO of multiparty computation (MPC) crypto custody service Safeheron. Wang said that there is a 'flight to security' among crypto investors, where holders 'are actively seeking innovative solutions that eliminate that single point of failure to significantly raise the bar for attacking.' Already in 2023, a report from PricewaterhouseCoopers on the state of digital custody noted the challenge of cold wallets being prone to theft or loss. One solution posited in the report was MPC or multisignature wallet options. Can custody services stop wrench attacks? Crypto self-custody, while boasting a new technology, runs into the same problem as treasure hoarders throughout history — they were vulnerable to physical attacks and theft until they could share that risk with a stronger and securer institution like a bank. Robbing a bank is a lot harder than robbing a person. In the same fashion, crypto investors are now seeking to 'raise the cost' of the $5 wrench attack. Wang said that investors wish to 'return to the fundamental principle: making the cost for an attacker rise exponentially. For example, when it costs $3 million to steal $10 million, the incentive for attack is lost.' Third-party custody can achieve this and mitigate the problem of wrench attacks, adding time-locks and layers of approval and shifting the target from an individual to the custodian's employees. 'But it is not an optimal solution,' per Wang. Trust is still put in a single, centralized institution and, as exemplified by the recent breaches at Coinbase and Bybit, even major regulated crypto businesses are vulnerable to employee misconduct and phishing. Wang suggested that distributed custody, such as MPC, 'is a superior solution because it fundamentally solves the problem. The core principle of MPC is to use technology to decentralize the single point of control and risk […] into a 'multiparty' structure.' In such a system, control doesn't belong to any one person, and transferring funds requires complex consensus protocols from multiple parties. Decentralized solutions may better reflect the ethos of the blockchain industry, but 'we cannot neglect the benefits of centralized custodians,' Wang said. 'Reliable security measures bring better assurance of keeping clients' assets safe, a familiar way of doing things for lots of new crypto players.' Centralized or decentralized, crypto investors could still be at risk if the public image of crypto investors is that they are all walking around with cold wallets full of Bitcoin. Shi said, 'The perception of risk matters, too. Attackers often assume holders store funds themselves, so public awareness that more crypto is held in custodial solutions may deter opportunistic assaults.' Wrench attacks a 'temporary problem' solved by adoption Public perception is indeed changing. Retail investors are increasingly making crypto part of their portfolio, according to a 2024 report from Ernst & Young. New regulations in large financial markets like the EU and the US are creating the frameworks necessary for institutional investors to get involved. This regulatory shift has been good for the custody industry as well, as it 'legitimizes professional custody for everyday investors and is leading to more offerings from not only crypto-native firms but traditional banks as well,' said Shi. 'We're seeing crypto adoption accelerate in regions with regulatory clarity, which creates entirely new custody considerations for investors who previously relied solely on self-custody solutions.' Regulations also raise the stakes of wrench attacks, per Wang. Better regulatory frameworks with more jurisdictions 'proactively setting robust regulations' will 'inevitably lead to more severe law enforcement actions, which will significantly increase the cost of such attacks and fundamentally curb such behaviors.' 'We see the physical attacking as a temporary challenge,' Wang concluded. The crypto industry has evolved through many stages, but the rise of wrench attacks on prominent investors and executives shows that it has yet to reach the maturity of traditional financial markets. In the meantime, executives are not only moving their assets to centralized and decentralized custodians but also finding muscle of their own. Personal security firms have also seen an uptick in interest from crypto's elite to protect their homes and persons. Source:
