Government. This even dominate the interior ministry. So these groups have been around for a while. Lebanese hezbollah, theyve also been around since the early 80s. But that doesnt mean they are not growing at rates weve never seen before. Because theres a new crisis we have new organizations. The other main thing is irans reach in this is totally overstated. I cant say how much annoyance that actually causes me because theyre so open about this about how they control these organizations. Again, all you need to do stoimz is go sometimes is go on facebook or follow iranian media. Heres the weird thing, and dr. Knights brought up this. Even if theyre not directly controlling the group theyll claim to do that and beyond that theyll try to influence them with cash and weapons and support, and then guess what happens. They become another micro hezbollah. I would actually say in this you can never ignore this topdown strategy. Just because these people are recruiting from a wide stream of shia. Im not saying everybodys a khomeinist. Not everybody whos fighting in a shia militia believes in absolute liatal fakei. But theres a top down structure here. How many a few decades ago would have said lebanons going to be a great place for this absolutely liatal fakei because we all know how religiously radical the shia population is there. Im pretty sure not many. And now look at it. These are main issues and hopefully ive cut through some of that. So we now have the narrative of jihad. Why were people going to fight in syria . How did this lead to the Current Events in iraq . How did this lead to shia militias fighting against isis . First and foremost, a religious crisis needed to be manufactured. When i say that there is the supposed threat against seita seita zayneb which is this major mosque and shrine in southern damascus. A lot of interesting weird granular connections to iran with this shrine. They actually rebuilt it. Its why it has this golden dome. What they cast this as is to have fighters to go into syria they needed people who would go for a religious reason a justified region. The justified reason is they were doing their shrine defense. But it wasnt just that. Just saying shrine defense, well, doesnt fit in with the khomeinist that was being pushed. Why would they need to defend it . Well oh, well, they were defending against the takfiris i mentioned early. Who pushed faechlt akfiris to this . America, the state of israel the west. That was wrapped within this. There was a whole conspiracy wrapped not this. And if youre really looking at the long term, real big longterm problems with this kind of outlook, it now casts this vision that maybe the United States really did want to push for the shrine to be destroyed. Maybe the u. S. Was really pushing these moderate rebel groups because they wanted them to be al qaeda. Sulemani himself came out and said america has been trying to push al qaeda into syria. For most of us sitting here that would sound kind of ludicrous. But thats been the narrative. So theres that. Beyond all of this by doing this move theyre executing a grand regional strategy that doesnt just target shia. And it targets a lot of minorities. And i think we saw a lot of this im sorry. Do you mind if i grab a soda here . Sorry, guys. Im running dry. I get excited. So all right. So in addition to this we have to deal with the minority issue. If you remember back when hezbollah first had to deal with syria first pulling out of lebanon lebanon, what did they do . They this4 outreach to that yacht al akhur which is michelle alams party. They obtained this wonderful catholic ally and they could put this veneer over them and say were lebanese nationalists, the khomeinist stuff is on the side, but dont worry, were on this lebanon thing. Beyond that when theyre trying pb push the concept of liatal liatal fakei it doesnt make sense to us its iranist ideology in iran, people are not treated well but theyre playing into these fears of drowning in the sunni sea. Theyve been doing this with christians. Bashar al assad, pushed this messaging up. If you dont ally with the allawis, the shia these sunnis are going to come in and destroy destroy you. Theres been that other move pushing them in that direction, pushing a Minority Alliance of sorts. They also push the good sunnis versus bad sunnis line as i like to call it where nus rala would come out and say were not against sunnis. He would simultaneously make a sectarian message, a pro shia message but they were not against sunnis. Actually, the takfirin these are not sunnis they werent even muslims. He was declaring them as apostates, all his enemies as apostates. There was that other categorization that was going on simultaneously with all of this. But the biggest thing thats going on are these panshia themes and the panshia themes theyre trying to cast this narrative that iran is the protector for the shia in the region. Yes, they are still casting the khomeinist message that says we are panislamic, that Ayatollah Khomeini he is the faqqa for all muslims, not just shia. In a geostrategic sense if youre trying to form clamps around main enemies, namely the saudis, the gulf and the israelis it also makes sense when you have forces in those areas. Those have been a big thing. But then theres this. They have trood to minimize their link to this while also trying to say we have maintained this jihad. And its kind of strange. They dont want to show there are geopolitical interests at stake. If they lost syria they would potentially lose their most valuable ally in the world which is Lebanese Hezbollah. You have to have syria. You have to have that bridge. And if they lost it to would be no good. So of course it would be a great idea to drive up a jihad. But if they said were drawing this as persian iranians, were having a jihad just to defend that sole interest, not many people would buy into it. It all traces back to that shrine over there. I attached a photo in here, and this is from one of my favorite favorite its not really in this sheet but its a song thats been played by as achlt belal hak a direct iranian proxy. It says were not here fighting for bashar. Were here fighting for the shia. Thats been the message. And thats how theyre trying to cast it. If were looking at iraq and how a lot of fighters have filtered back there and have been sent back there, what are we seeing there . Were protecting islam. To them islam is shiism. Thats how theyre doing it. When we look at this we have to focus on the actual militias. Which fill militias are really going and sending people to shias . Theres a lot of confusion about what the sadrists were doing. Muqtada al sadr were remembering him as this fiery cleric, he killed americans when we were in iraq. But theres kind of a gray area when it comes to this. And the gray area is the weird thing. Theres a lot of weird info ops going on online to try and say that sadr is fully alongside the shia jihad in syria. But theres also evidence to say that maybe sadr did donate a few people to fight in syria, we just dont know. But for the most part there are a lot of people who were what we would call sadrist splinters. Back during the iraq war, when we were there, a problem happened with the sadrists where he was trying to maintain the mehdi army. This didnt work out so well. He pushed back against the iranians. Not a great idea. So what did they do . They encouraged these splits and tried to build separate organizations. The really interest thing as i was doing this research i tried to look up people who helped form this group. I call it lafa network. But the full name is liwa bil liwa bil fada al abes. The initial corps of commanders almost all of them were sadrist splinter people. One of them who was killed they would call him khayara he was killed i want to say december 2012. This is a person who served with mr. Duleimi. A shia who converted to sheism who was seenltly in an al hak in iraq and he also raided the provincial headquarters for the American Forces when it was in karbala killing five of our guys. He was in some way related to that. The old expression it stinks on ice to say that theyre sadrists, it kind of does in this respect because yeah, they may have been sadrists, they may have been promoting a lot of sadrist imagery and some other things but they had clear direct links to the iranians. Going down more we have the old standard bearers. When i say standard bearers the good old iranian proxies we know so well. Mainly Lebanese Hezbollah. They were some of the initial force thats were sent by the iranians into syria. They were serving as advisers. They were also serving as direct combat advisers. But also helping form up localized inshahs made up of shias and also allawi wies. The Badr Organization is another one. But its a little more collection when you look at the Badr Organization because what did badr do . Badr also simultaneously while building their own process and putting their own fighters into syria were also building new separate special groups inside of iraq, taking some of their members, putting them in there and then saying okay now that this new group is formed were going to send these people to syria. For instance, one of the newer groups that i put past al hak was khtay saab al shuada. One of their first martyrs was the son of a prime militia dr prime badr corps militias celebrated by the Badr Organization and his son was somehow killed fighting for khatab addar shul ha dechlt ab which believes in the same concepts which just kind of came out of nowhere in early 2013. And this is kind of the connection that they have. I guess going past that we have baasay al hak. Im sure a lot of people remember these groups. They efped american soldiers, they killed a lot of Coalition Forces and also some of these guys wrt force into iraq. And actually the interesting thing what they would do was go to iran and take a syrian air flight into damascus, unload. Theyd be wearing their sievies. Theyd get off the plane. Everything was fine. Theyd pick up a rifle and go and fight. And they were not even hiding this earlier when they were coming into that country. They were not hiding the flights. They were openly advertising it on very easily accessible facebook pages which is kind of shocking. Makes you really think about this. Was that an opsec fail on their part or was it Something Else . Were they trying to promote that hey, we can go into syria whenever we want whos going to stop us . The Biggest Issue here has been the syrian based groups. Theyre local actors or they cast themselves as local actors. Eventually the syrian muhabara the intelligence groupings tried to help form up a lot of localized shia militias. The main one that came out of this was liwa al fadda bul ab sechlt. But from there it expanded out. Think of it like an octopus with a million different little groupz that were associated with it. Could we write these groups off as subdivisions of the larger lafa network theyre a battalion underneath a larger army group . I would say yes. I think theyre all networked together. But they have now taken on their own separate names, their own separate identities in some cases. Theyve taken on their own separate recruitment activities both in iraq and in syria. They dont really hide this. They have their own commanders. A lot of them coming out of that initial network. So this is kind of the nexus that has formed. Irans proxy web. I put khabi and holding hands. Khabi is a guy who helped find assay al hak as i went through before one of the First Special groups i saw in iraq. Whats khabi doing now . Hes now leading a group called nujaba. It looks crazy. A million different links everywhere. How does this make any sense for a grand regional strategy . Get to this. Now check this out. But wait. Theres more. I tried to track down all the different connections. You wouldnt believe this. Ka semial tay. A radical cleric where some of his people who with this have gone. Liwa abu fadl al abbas. Im sorry if im making the cspan guys angry. All these little groups. Even in black over there. Meyun. Formed by the iranians to rout afghan hazara fighters. They put this in this big corps. What did they do the minute they got to syria . They were not fighting under the banner of weyon but abbas. They had their subregiments. But all of this this confusing jumble i had to put a line through sadr because how else am i going to represent sadrist splinters . After they had already splintered 4,000 different ways, what did we end up having . They did it again. Its just crazy. They did it again. Liwa abu fadl al abbas, they formed a group called mahdi. Its the force of the hawks of al mahdi. This is their iraq contingent. But a lot of other groups have taken on the Liwa Abu Fadl alabbas name. And a lot of them have connections to the original alabbas. Is this a they need to get their stuff together. There are a bunch of groups that have done that. Even liwa al asaab waleb a group formed in december 2013, at least thats when they are announced announced, they were formed earlier than that, they even started their own iraqi contingent. All of this is going on the spread and the movement and the networking. It continues. If were getting down to brass tacks on this one. I think a lot of this is just kind of a little game that a lot of people in irgcq like to play because a lot of these people will share members theyll fight in the same fronts theyll say they lost the same member. Its all a big game so that i can sit here suck down my diet mountain dew and just slam my head against the table as im looking for yet another militia group. In addition to think wanted to focus on my favorite this is my white whale of militia commanders, a la khiwail. I followed this guy since he had his first facebook page. He ran it himself. He had this great haircut would wear this awesome turban. Everything about him was this own personality. But when youre looking at it what was his presence really represent . This is a major thing. Initially he came out and it was announced via nujaba this new group that he was a commander in aleppo. The aleppo area. Imagine, thats nowhere near Sayyida Zaynab in damascus theyre supposed to be defending. Then they had him as a sardist. That was a picture they put up of him after he was killed. With Muqtada Al Sadr in the front. And sewellyoull see him in an orange shirt in the back. He came back to iraq in pring of 2014. Didnt hide this at all. But then he was named as a commander of ashtar. The great thing about this is easter was named he had two music videos dedicated to him and he appeared in one. Im not making this one up. But afterward another shift seemed to happen. No one mentioned khattab al ashtar anymore. Did just vanish . Did it disappear into thin air . I didnt see any mentions in iraqi press, anything on their tv media which i leave on most of the time. But then they showed him with khattab hezbollah and khattab al mela ali. By showing in khattab al me lachlt ali was a new organization formed in iraq by zaide. But mohanda was the one behind that. This would necessitate he had much deeper connections to irgcqf than we probably realized. Interestingly enough after being pictured with them he was never named as one of their games. When he was killed he had an official martyrdom poster, an official poster and everything for al mehli and all of a sudden his name and face spread all over the showa ahe shia militia web. A huge thing i realized when i was doing this research was the recruitment factor online something i really truly believe nobody is paying all that much attention to. They have been posting phone numbers and all sorts of things. This is actually one of the initial ones that was posted. This was taken in najaf where they would put up a Popular Committee number. Theyd hide it in the imagery youre looking at and put this all in there. A little more needs to be done because guess what ive called into these numbers. Theres somebody sitting in the audience whos called in with me to these numbers and weve had conversations with these guys. So its really not that hard. What have me established . By the way, i love this picture of sulemani because it fits into that narrative that were pushing isis. What have they done . Theyve secured damascus. Theyve secured the rule for bashar al assad. Hands down. This is not the republican guard. This is not some magical local syrian militia that did it. No. This was hezbollah. This was the other allied organizations. I dont even describe these as links. They are all part of a unified network. And thats how theyre developing this. While weve done this theyve taken a ton of geography in syria. Theyve been able to construct a new golan front. If you think about the pincer moves as i was talking about before, theyre helping in theyre assisting in doing that. Their infiltration in the Iraqi Government and now also within syria is i would say in syria its almost complete. Its not like assad can push back against them. Theyre the main fighting force. And then on top of that for the iranians building this narrative of strength projection and then protection for shia groups in the middle east, this is huge. When you feel youre under an existential threat, i think any shia if i were a shia and an iranian irgc guy came in and said im going to give you money, im going to give you guns, the americans are dawdling right now theyre not doing enough for you and they never will. They are the great satan im pretty sure i would take it if i thought isis was going to destroy me. And theyre playing off of that so effectively. So bigger thing. Probably the biggest thing. I put this in here. There are other regional consequences to the growth of this group from this shia jihad in syria. Ive heard this question. Will they magically moderate after isis is defeated . I dont believe so. I dont think so at all. Its kind of like saying did Lebanese Hezbollah moderate . Did they drop their weapons after the israelis pulled out of southern lebanon in 2000 . They most certainly did not. They kept their arms. Actually, the same thing happened when we pulled out in 2011. Asaybal al hak said were going to drop our arms. Never did. But heres the biggest thing. My buddy aala hilayl over there. Does anybody know what group this poster belongs to . Suray al mukhtar. A new smaller like young guys who came out of the february 14th Youth Movement in bahrain have put this up for him. That kind of says something. Theres a khattab saidlittle al khatab poster. It has the phone numbers on it. And if you notice the little red blotch behind the f