The role of the Popular Mobilization Forces in the Iraqi conflict and its influence as a non-state actor

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The fellow proposed doing research on the role of the popular mobilization forces (PMF) in Iraq in the struggle against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria organization between 2014-2017 and their role post-ISIS, as well as researching popular views for dealing with ISIS prisoners of war. The research on the PMF concentrated on both military and political levels. The mobilization on this grand scale of a conglomeration of militias in one military forces capable of conducting conventional operations was a unique feature in the Iraq war. The fellow looked at the advantages in military terms that these formations provided to the stated whether it was manpower or the economic means to keep this manpower operating. The Popular Mobilization forces grew into a semi-regular army that transcended the nature of a militia by waging conventional operations far from recruitment bases and using medium-heavy to heavy weaponry, while at the same time recruiting and operating their own that operated its own local militias, given the southern region in Iraq as the main source of manpower of the PMF that fought outside their local boundaries. Fighting locally is usually what characterizes a militia. A decentralized nature of command in the PMF has contrasted with the typical style overly centralized command in the Iraqi Army, and for that matter most of Arab Middle Eastern armies, and proved beneficiary to the achievement of increasing flexibility in the battlefield by most of PMF formations compared to the Iraqi army and ministry of interior units.