Pro-Iran militias in Iraq have leveraged their arms not only into terrorism against Americans but also against any Iraqis who would prioritize Iraq’s interests over those of neighboring Iran. While the White House, State Department, and U.S. intelligence community focus on militant groups like the Badr Corps, Asaib Ahl-e al-Haq, and Kata’ib Hezbollah, urging Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi to crack down on their actions contrary to Iraqi sovereignty, they too often focus exclusively on their military action but forget the means by which they make money or infiltrate the Iraqi economy.
Any religious legitimacy these Popular Mobilization Forces claim to have is stolen. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani’s fatwa calling upon Iraqis to defeat the Islamic State came in 2014, yet the Iran-backed militias, in some cases, were founded as early as 1982.
Just as with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran, however, the Iran-backed militias are as much business conglomerates as military forces. Like Chicago in the 1930s, they are a mafia that seeks to utilize their arms to monopolize certain sectors and strangle the Iraqi economy.
Just as with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran, however, the Iran-backed militias are as much business conglomerates as military forces.
While analysts often look at Iraq through the lens of oil, the Iran-backed groups and parties have often gravitated to other sectors, both because their heavier manpower needs allow greater patronage and because they are lucrative. According to World Bank data, Iraq’s gross domestic product has increased almost twentyfold since 2023 in nominal dollar terms, representing a compound annual growth rate of approximately 14 percent.
One of the most lucrative sectors inside Iraq is communications. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein kept Iraq isolated. After Iraq’s liberation, the Coalition Provisional Authority and its hand-picked Ministry of Communications issued temporary licenses to the Jalal Talabani-controlled Asiacell, the Iraqna network, which Egypt’s Orascom put together, and the Kuwaiti-owned Zain. Qatar Telecom, later rebranded Ooredoo, eventually purchased majority ownership in Asiacell.
Following Iraq’s resumption of sovereignty, the Communications and Media Commission, then an independent body, began issuing licenses. Beginning in 2007, the Iraqi government reworked the process so that the Ministry of Communications would issue licenses, in theory, based upon the recommendation of the Communications and Media Commission. In practice, however, this meant that political patronage took precedence, especially after legal reorganization subordinated the Communications and Media Commission to parliament. Asiacell kept its license but, in a process marked by corruption, the Iraqi government awarded a new license in 2007 to Korek, a company controlled by the Barzani family, to replace the Orascom license. Masoud Barzani’s nephew Sirwan used public funds to place a downpayment for Korek’s license and then proceeded to run the company as private. In 2022, Korek’s license expired, but its corruption schemes led it to eventually lose a $1.65 billion arbitration. With payment in arrears, in August 2026, the Iraqi government ordered Korek’s assets seized.
Iraq’s experience with Korek illustrates the danger of malign operators and an opaque and often corrupt Communications and Media Commission and Ministry of Communications process.
The danger of this Iranian and militia infiltration of Iraqi communications extends beyond the cell phone network to the internet.
Iranian leaders use that corruption to compromise Iraq’s security and further Tehran’s own interests. Beginning in 2014, prime ministers appointed ministers of communication more deferential to Iran. For example, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s successor Haider al-Abdi appointed Kazem Hassan Rashed, a close affiliate of the Badr Corps. Kazem’s successor Naim al-Rubaei, meanwhile, owed allegiance to Asaib Ahl al-Haq; while Rubaei claimed to be an independent, Asaib claimed him as their own. The next minister, Hiam al-Yasiri, answered to Maliki’s pro-Iranian State of Law grouping. While al-Zaidi promised the White House he would extricate Iranian influence, he has since hedged his bets. His Minister of Communications is Mustafa Jabar Sanad who, although independent, aligns with Asaib Ahl al-Haq and other pro-Iran Shi’i militant groups.
The danger of this Iranian and militia infiltration of Iraqi communications extends beyond the cell phone network to the internet. While West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center published an article by business consultant and Washington Institute fellow Michael Knights suggesting ScopeSky is one of Iraq’s few non-militia-controlled communications networks, he appears to have gotten this backwards. So, too, was his listing of Enkidu and Supercell as militia-affiliates in error. Diving into his footnotes, the problem seems to be that he relies on anonymous sources, some of whom might have had agendas and others who might not have had direct knowledge of what they claimed. When Enkidu and Supercell requested retractions in correspondence shown to me, the Combating Terrorism Center and Washington Institute ignored them. Emirati and American funds invest in and support Enkidu and Supercell, making the West Point Sentinel’s accusations bizarre.
In reality, ScopeSky and its partner Earthlink Telecommunications—whose Iraqi iteration has nothing to do with the U.S. company Earthlink—appear today to be major vessels for militia infiltration of Iraq’s communications network, at least according to Iraqis in the sector. Earthlink, for example, while registered in the United Arab Emirates, appears regularly to promote Hezbollah.
ScopeSky is civilian-run. When founded during Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s administration, it posed no security threat. However, during Nouri al-Maliki’s rule, the company received government contracts to expand rapidly and became one of Iraq’s major internet providers. Its central figure is Munaf Subaih al-Shaikhli. Both al-Shaikhli and ScopeSky appeared in the Panama Papers, the 2015 leak of 11.5 million financial and legal documents that exposed those using offshore shell companies to hide wealth.
Following Maliki’s downfall, ScopeSky shifted closer to the Badr Corps, developing ties to Hadi al-Amiri, former Interior Minister Mohammed al-Ghabban, and Badr office leader Sayed Wahab. Kazem al-Sadeq, Iran’s ambassador to Iraq, provided further assistance, as did Aqeel Meften Khafeef al-Baidhani, whom the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned on October 9, 2025, for building financial and banking networks to support the Qods Force. Those controlling internet service providers and cell phone systems can tap and extract intelligence from those networks.
Here, Iraq is not alone. Houthi control over Yemen’s major cell phone network continues to undercut security, even in those areas under the control of the Internationally Recognized Government.
The U.S. government and U.S. Embassy should support no communications network or company whose ownership, provenance, and real control are not clear and transparent.
In 2018, Iraqi Interior Minister Qassim al-Arraji, a Badr Corps member, awarded a contract to a European company to help create a facility and acquire equipment to create a national register and electronic ID system. Within Iraq, al-Shaikhli and Asaib Ahl al-Haq’s Qais al-Khazali repeatedly helped maneuver ScopeSky an Earthlink into the Iraqi portion of operations, compromising security by making their “Tabadul” payment system the platform the e-visa and electronic ID system use.
Details matter. As President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent seek to contain and roll back Iranian influence, it is essential they support a strategy that bolsters and supports telecommunications groups who resist compromise. Iraq can be a morass of shifting loyalties and financial opacity. At a minimum, the U.S. government and U.S. Embassy should support no communications network or company whose ownership, provenance, and real control are not clear and transparent.
The safest strategy might be to support those companies—Supercell, Ankedo, and Tele Core IT Solutions, for example—that openly reject partnership with militia-infiltrated firms, refuse to incorporate any Chinese components in their networks, and willingly subordinate themselves to U.S. law. Supercell and Ankedo are registered in the United Arab Emirates, and Tele Core IT is an American company.
At a minimum, the U.S. Embassy and policymakers in Washington should make their transparency and operations a standard to which any competing networks from ScopeSky and Earthlink to Nukhba FTTH must comply. No U.S. project should touch or utilize any Iraqi network that does not open its books and receive gold standard approval from U.S. regulators. The U.S. Department of the Treasury might go further and sanction any minister of communications that appears to favor or even simply be negligent in combating Iranian infiltration of Iraqi telecommunications.
