Since the collapse of the Iraqi military in Northern Iraq, allowing the Islamic State (IS) group to seize large swaths of territory in early June, the central government in Baghdad has relied in large part on various militias and volunteers to shore up its forces. One of these groups that has played a large role in liberating a number of towns from IS is the Badr Organization, headed by former Minister of Transportation Hadi al-Amiri.
Conservative website Mashregh News ran a profile of Amiri on Nov. 12. The glowing profile by Mashregh, which some believe has close connections to Iran's security agencies, can be viewed as endorsement. The brief synopsis, in addition to Amiri’s activities against former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, also read that Amiri has both Iraqi and Iranian citizenship and that his wife is Iranian.
