European
Influx of Militiamen Loyal To Iran Could Pose Problems
by John Rossomando
IPT News
October 19, 2015
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 Evidence uncovered
on social media indicates that members of Iranian-trained Shiite militias
may be entering Europe as refugees, a London-based Iraqi émigré group says.
The Foreign Relations Bureau – Iraq (FRBI) identified
images of 48 men on Facebook and Twitter who it says fought with
Iranian-trained Shiite militias in Iraq and now are in Europe.
FRBI came into existence in 2014 and promotes women's rights, equality, Iraqi independence
from foreign control, and a non-sectarian approach to governance.
FRBI's list shows pictures of militiamen in uniform and
carrying weapons. Alongside those images are pictures showing the same
people wearing Western street clothes and standing in places such as
Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Greece and Finland. This same list also includes
16 people belonging to Iraq's security services who similarly made their
way to Europe and who FBRI accuses of crimes against the Iraqi people.
These militias engaged in serious human-rights abuses in places like
Tikrit after they ousted the Islamic State, and Iraqi security forces similarly engaged in unlawful
killings, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). FRBI refers to HRW's
research about human-rights abuses in Iraq as a reason why these men should
not have been allowed into the E.U.
Images of these fighters began surfacing on social media in August and
early September, said FRBI spokesman A. Al-Mahmoud.
"Our lists are compiled with the efforts of some of our affiliate
analysts who follow social media of all sorts mainly militia related pages
whom suddenly started posting images from within the EU as the refugee
situation escalated," Al-Mahmoud said in an email to the Investigative
Project on Terrorism (IPT). "A public page was then set up on our
website to document what can be from these accounts in hope that media
would find it easier to have what they need all in one page."
Thus far, FRBI has no evidence that the influx of Shiite militiamen into
Europe has been organized or orchestrated by Iran or any organized crime
syndicate in Europe, but the scale of the militiamen's migration is
unprecedented, Al-Mahmoud said.
They may have varying motivations, he said. Some may fear war crimes
prosecutions and are trying to remake themselves into refugees. Others may
no longer care about their government's or clergy's goals.
The men regularly posted images of themselves on the battlefield,
Al-Mahmoud said, then suddenly began posting images showing them in Europe,
which led FBRI to believe they had infiltrated the wave of refugees.
No matter the reasons for their move, FRBI fears these men are on a
collision course with European values and trapped by a vicious sectarian
ideology that makes them a potential threat to their host countries. It
alleges that some of these men may have participated in war crimes in Iraq.
"[M]ost of the people who did join the militias do have sectarian
leanings and they will export their irrational thought of non co-existence
outside Iraq, which will collide with other open and liberal societies, so
they will bring their problems with them," Al-Mahmoud said.
"Finally, the background they are from is very low and poor with
minimal education; unskilled and foreign, they will quickly find it easy to
get into the criminal/theft and drug world adding more problems to the
European Union immigrant communities already suffering from stereotyping
and media pressure.
"They were paid members of organizations that were trained to kill
under religious banners; this is the first time they have come out of Iraq
in such large numbers."
The men belonged to deadly militias such as Al-Hashid al-Shaabi and its subsidiaries such as: Kataib Hizballah (aka Hizballah Iraq), Kataib Imam Ali militia, Saraya al-Salam militia (Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's
Peace Brigades) – all of which are trained and strongly influenced by the
Iranian Revolutionary Guard Qods Force under the command of Gen. Qasem Soleimani.
He emerged as a controversial figure in the discussions of the Iranian
nuclear deal.
Kataib Imam Ali militia formed from splinter elements of al-Sadr's
militia that fought American forces during the Iraq War and remain
"extremely anti-American," said Phillip Smyth, an adjunct fellow at the Washington Institute and an expert
on Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria. Kataib Imam Ali militiamen have been implicated in
human-rights abuses similar to those carried out by the Islamic State
(ISIS), he said. In one case, a video showed a militiaman dismembering the
burned corpse of a Islamic State fighter as if he were "shwarma,"
which sparked a reprisal video by the Islamic State in which two Shiite
fighters were burned to death.
An IPT review of the information provided by FRBI lends credence to its
contention that Shiite fighters have entered Europe among groups of
refugees.
For example, the Facebook page of Al-Hashid al-Shaabi militia member Ali Spaaki shows a clear progression from being
on the battlefield in Iraq in June to making his way across
Europe throughout September and on to Helsinki, Finland on Oct. 4. Spaaki's Facebook page
shows him getting off a ferry along with a crowd of people in a picture
posted to his timeline on Sept. 20 in front of a Greek-flagged ferry and a
large crowd. A related photo, also taken Sept. 20, shows him standing in front of a boat that reads
"Bodrum" [Turkey] on its stern as its homeport, suggesting the
ferry may have departed from that Turkish town. Bodrum has become a "magnet" for refugees, and large numbers of refugees have left the town hoping to
make it to Greece since the summer, according to news reports. Spaaki's
departure date came weeks after the body of Aylan Kurdi, a toddler refugee,
washed up onshore near Bodrum.
A similar story can be told by examining the Facebook page belonging to Al-Hashid Al-Shaabi fighter Mustafa Al-Azawi. There, he
explicitly discusses his effort
to enter Greece on the island of Lesbos on Sept. 17 via Izmir, Turkey,
which news reports say is a common
point of departure for refugees. Pictures
on Al-Azawi's timeline of himself posing on the shore of the island and
of inner tubes and a crowd of likely refugees happened the same day a Getty Images photographer captured an image
of migrants arriving on Lesbos. Days earlier, on
Sept. 10, Al-Azawi posted Google Maps images of routes to Lesbos on
Facebook, suggesting he planned his route to the island. Like Spaaki,
Al-Azawi's Facebook page shows his travel across Europe before making his
to his final destination in Oulu, Finland on Oct. 3.
Al-Mahmoud also worries these militiamen could become entangled in
organized crime and become involved in Iranian-controlled social
organizations across Europe, and they will be used for Iran's political
ends.
"A lot of them believe in ... Iran's guiding ideology, and that
political and social matters are presided over by Ayatollah Khamenei ... so
they follow what he says," Smyth said. "They (Iraqi Shiite
militiamen in Europe) do pose a risk.
"These groups believe that both America and the State of Israel are
their existential foes."
In the past, Hizballah supporters living in Europe, Canada or the United
States have engaged in criminal activities. This includes cigarette smuggling in the U.S. and accusations of organized crime in Canada and in the E.U. Hizballah supporters also plotted and
carried out terrorist attacks in Argentina and Bulgaria. Although these
Iraqi militias are not part of Hizballah, they are branches on the same
Iranian Qods Force tree – first cousins in effect.
Shiites who support Hizballah and Iran in places like Sweden already
have been recruited as foreign fighters by Iranian proxies to fight in Iraq,
said Smyth, who traveled to Scandinavia last year on a related research
trip. Having a passport from someplace like Sweden means a foreign fighter
can come and go from hot zones like Iraq or Syria without the same hassles
someone traveling on a Lebanese, Syrian or Iraqi passport.
While most attention has been given to Sunni foreign fighters traveling
to Syria and Iraq to fight for the Islamic State and other Sunni jihadist
groups, Smyth said, not enough attention has been given to Shiite fighters
with ties to Iran.
"You now have a new transnational threat that is loyal to the
Iranians, that is anti-American, is anti-Western, is anti-Israel,"
Smyth said. "There is a direct threat that's there."
It is hard to tell how many people on the FRBI list actually are
refugees or if they are in the E.U. vacationing or are there for some other
reason. But Smyth sees them as a national-security threat either way.
"Here are examples of these guys when they are out of uniform, when
they are possibly still militiamen, and they are traveling to Europe, which
says something. How did they get there with a visa? Why, after all of this
has been publicized, are they all still going?" Smyth asked in a phone
interview with the IPT. "There are already examples of Shia
militiamen, Hizballah for instance, who have used Western passports to go
different places and to engage in bad deeds."
This also has U.S. Customs officials concerned. The ease in which these
Shia militiamen have entered Europe raises fears that they will be able to
travel to the U.S. on E.U. passports, said one Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) agent who spoke under the condition of not being named.
Anyone with a passport from places like Germany, Sweden can easily get on a
flight to the U.S. without the sorts of hassles they might experience
traveling on an Iraqi or a Syrian passport.
A spokeswoman for Europe's top law enforcement agency, EUROPOL, told the
IPT her agency was unaware of any organized effort by terrorist organizations
to infiltrate the E.U. However, none of the Shia militia groups whose
members have made their way to Europe are listed as terror groups by the
E.U.
"There are however concerns about the use of the Mediterranean
routes. While the majority of irregular migrants and refugees are in search
of safety, other groups such as returning foreign fighters and other
individuals linked to IS (Islamic State), might make use of the services
provided by the organized crime groups," EUROPOL spokeswoman Agnieszka
Biegaj wrote in an e-mailed statement. "Given the hazardous nature of
the illegal migratory routes, from a terrorists' perspective, it makes more
sense to use regular travel methods and other resources such as false or
genuine travel documents."
Related Topics: John
Rossomando, refugee
crisis, Foreign
Relations Bureau – Iraq, Shiite
militias, Iran,
Hizballah,
Human
Rights Watch, European
Union, A.
Al-Mahmoud, Al-Hashid
al-Shaabi, Kataib
Hizballah, Kataib
Imam li, Saraya
al-Salam, Moqtada
al-Sadr, Phillip
Smyth, IRGC
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