ERBIL, Kurdistan Region- Hoshiyar Zebari, Iraq's minister of finance, told Reuters on Wednesday that an estimated 20 percent of the 2016 national budget will be spent on defense, including paying and arming the Shiite militias known as Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces).
The Reuters report quoted Zebari as saying that Baghdad will hire 10,000 more volunteer fighters and focus its military spending on smaller weapons and anti-mining devices in order to combat the forces of the Islamic State, or ISIS.
"There has been a shift in emphasis by the government to improve the quality of the weapons that are needed for this type of war," Hoshiyar Zebari in an interview for the Reuters Middle East Investment Summit.
The Hashd al-Shaabi took up arms last year at the call of top Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani when ISIS was overrunning much of Iraq. Now, tens of thousands of the Iran-backed fighters are deployed across the country at times working in tandem with the Iraqi Army.
Zebari's estimate on defense spending would be less than the $1 billion Baghdad allocated this year, Reuters said, with an undisclosed portion of that sum earmarked for the Hashd al-Shaabi.
"I think we gave them ... about 10,000 new recruits which they have requested, but they have their budget within the security forces," he said of next year's national budget. "We will pay their salaries, we pay for their equipment, we pay for their basic war needs."
