BAGHDAD, Iraq — As they seek to open new fronts in the region, Shiite militias continue to recruit Iraqi Shiite young people to fight in Syria. In this context, Sheikh Akram al-Kaabi, the leader of Hezbollah al-Nujaba, announced Aug. 1 his fighters' willingness to fight alongside the Houthis in Yemen. Also, right after the announcement of the establishment of "Jaish al-Mou'mal in Iraq and the Levant" on June 15, the militia expressed its intention to fight in Iraq, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen in a bid to defend Shiite holy sites. The new organization announced its desire to open battlefronts wherever Shiites exist in the region.

Since fighting broke out in Syria on March 18, 2011, young Iraqi Shiite fighters of several other militias, including the Brigade of Abu al Fadl al Abbas, the Zulfikar brigade and the Iraq Hezbollah brigades, have been flocking to Syria to fight alongside the Syrian army and its ally, Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah, against the mostly Sunni Syrian opposition factions.

The fact that the Islamic State (IS) seized control of Mosul on June 11, 2014, and Ramadi on May 15, 2015, has apparently failed to deter those Shiite young people from joining the fighting fronts in Syria, according to a report published by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Ali al-Yasiri, a 21-year-old Shiite fighter from Babylon, south of Baghdad, told Al-Monitor that defending the Shiite shrine of Sayyida Zeinab in Syria, after Sunni extremist organizations threatened to destroy it, "is as important as defending any Iraqi city."