“It’s particularly sad to me that terrorist organizations have been allowed to exist,” Wilson, a staunch Iran critic, said, reacting to the US State Department’s designation of four Iran-backed Iraqi militia groups as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). “The Iraqi government needs to take steps. They need to divorce themselves from the influence of Iran.”
“The regime in Tehran is evil,” he stressed.
Washington on Wednesday designated Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, Harakat Ansar Allah al-Awfiya, and Kataib al-Imam Ali as FTOs, saying the decision came as part of President Donald Trump’s order to impose “maximum pressure” on Iran.
The designations came three weeks after the Iraqi government - with intense pressure from Washington - revoked a controversial bill to restructure the PMF. Although the PMF is part of Iraq’s security apparatus, many of its factions still operate independently, with impunity, and reportedly maintain strong ties to Iran.
“Iraq should be working as closely as they can with the United States,” Wilson stressed, adding that Baghdad’s neighbors “are doing so much better,” referring to Lebanon’s ongoing move to disarm Hezbollah.
“We want the best for the people of Iraq, but [that] has to be done by the people of Iraq, not outside forces,” he asserted.
Earlier on Wednesday, Wilson thanked Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for the designations, saying the move “will empower our prosecutors to dry up funds for these terrorist groups.”
Iran is believed to have many proxy groups in Iraq, which it has used in the past to target US interests in the region. Washington has taken several measures to ensure that Baghdad is free of Tehran’s influence, including the termination of a waiver which had allowed Iraq to buy Iranian electricity for years.
Congressman Michael T. McCaul, a Republican from Texas, also expressed concern about Tehran’s influence in Baghdad.
“I am concerned about the growing presence of Shiite militias in Iraq, and the fact that everything our soldiers fought for could be infiltrated by Iran,” McCaul told Rudaw.
Syria
McCaul stressed the necessity for the US to continue cooperating with Kurdish-led forces in Syria, calling the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and its backbone, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), Washington’s “allies” in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS).
“We have to continue to work with them to ensure ISIS doesn’t rear its head again,” he said. “I do think we should keep our 800 troops there, if anything, to maintain security at the prisons, where there is thousands of ISIS people.”
Backed by the United States, the SDF functions as the de facto military force in the Kurdish-majority northeast Syria (Rojava). It remains a key partner of the US-led global coalition against ISIS and fought the lion’s share of the battle that ended with the territorial defeat of ISIS in Syria in 2019.
