Iraq
Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis attending the funeral procession of PMF in Baghdad on December 31, 2019. Photo: AFP/Ahmed al-Rubaye
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region- Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy of Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) was killed in a US airstrike in the early hours of Friday.
The PMF official diedalongside Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Commander Qasem Solaimani and several PMF fighters when guided missiles hit a convoy at Baghdad International Airport.
Born as Jamal Jaafar al-Tamimi to an Iraqi father and Iranian mother, Muhandis ("The Engineer") had been dubbed the "shadow Prime Minister of Iraq" due to his influence and strong backing of Iran, enabling the influence and power of Tehran in a country plagued with wars.
Loyal to the Iranian regime, Muhandis described himself as "solider of Solaimani" in a July 2016 documentary for Iran national TV.
At the time of his death he was the deputy head of the PMF, an umbrella group of militias incorporated into the Iraqi Armed Forces in 2016, and had previously held positions as leader of Shiite militia Badr Corps and an adviser to the Quds Force, the unit responsible conducting unconventional warfare operations abroad .
Muhandis launched his political career in 1970, joining the then-banned Islamic Dawa Party after graduating with a degree in engineering.
He left Iraq after Saddam Hussein' crackdown on Shiite political figures and parties following the rise of the Islamic Republic of Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini. Several members of Dawa were executed by regime forces, including Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, widely regarded as the ideological founder of the party, who was killed in 1980.
Fleeing to Kuwait, Muhdanis continued to work for Iran overseas and conducted "jihadi activities" alongside late Hezbollah leader Mustafa Baddredine, who was killed in Syria in 2016.
Both men are considered responsible for attacks organized on the foreign missions of countries that supported Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war, including the bombings of the US and French embassies that year. In 1984, Muhdanis fled once again to Iran.
Muhdanis and Baddredine were convicted and sentenced to death in absentia by a court in Kuwait for planning the attacks.
Following the US invasion, Muhandis returned to Iraq and served as security and adviser under PM Ibrahim al-Jaafar.
He was elected to the Iraqi parliament in 2005 under Dawa, but fled to Iran when the US raised his profile with then PM Nouri al-Maliki.
Kataib Hezbollah, a PMF militia once overseen by Muhdanis, has been at the forefront of events leading to the current escalation between Washington and Tehran US airstrikes killed 25 PMF members on Sunday following a barrage of rockets on Kirkuk's K1 base last week, killing a US civilian contractor and injuring several servicemen.
Muhdanis condemned the US airstrikes, which struck PMF bases across Iraq and Syria.
"The blood of the martyrs will not be in vain and our response will be very tough on the Americans in Iraq," he said on Monday.
PMF supporters launched a siege on the US Embassy following the airstrikes, with Muhandis seen among the crowd.
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