Jamal Ja'far Muhammad Ali Al Ibrahim ( ar, جمال جعفر محمد علي آل إبراهيم ', 16 Nov 1954 – 2 January 2020), known by the
kunya Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis ( ar, أبو مهدي المهندس, lit=Father of Mahdi, the Engineer), also spelled Mohandes, was an Iraqi-Iranian commander of the
Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF). At the time of his death, he was deputy chief of the PMF (''Al-Hashd Al-Sha'abi'').
From 1977, he was an opponent of
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...
. He became the commander of volunteer militias that grew from the need to combat ISIS, including the
Kata'ib Hezbollah
Kata'ib Hezbollah ( ar, كتائب حزب الله, lit=Battalions of the Party of God)—or the Hezbollah Battalions—is a radical Iraqi Shiite paramilitary group which is part of the Popular Mobilization Forces backed by Iran. During the Ir ...
militia group, which is designated a terror organisation by the governments of Japan, the US and the UAE; and prior to that worked with the Iranian
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC; fa, سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی, Sepāh-e Pāsdārān-e Enghelāb-e Eslāmi, lit=Army of Guardians of the Islamic Revolution also Sepāh or Pasdaran for short) is a branch o ...
against Saddam's regime.
[
Allegations of terrorism have been levelled against him over his activities in Kuwait in the 1980s.][ He was sentenced to death in absentia in 2007 by a court in Kuwait for his involvement in the 1983 Kuwait bombings.] Muhandis was on the United States list of designated terrorists. However, this has been disputed due to his role in combating the Ba’ath Party
The Arab Socialist Baʿath Party ( ar, حزب البعث العربي الاشتراكي ' ) was a political party founded in Syria by Mishel ʿAflaq, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Bītār, and associates of Zaki al-ʾArsūzī. The party espoused B ...
regime rather than supporting it (via attacking Kuwait). The charges were dropped when the new Iraqi government was formed in 2004. The organisations he oversaw, such as the Popular Mobilization Forces have been reported to have close links to the Quds Force
The Quds Force ( fa, نیروی قدس, niru-ye qods, Jerusalem Force) is one of five branches of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) specializing in unconventional warfare and military intelligence operations. U.S. Army's Iraq War ...
, part of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Armed (May, 1941–1964) was an American Thoroughbred gelding race horse who was the American Horse of the Year in 1947 and Champion Older Male Horse in both 1946 and 1947. He was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in ...
.
He was killed by a targeted U.S. drone strike at Baghdad International Airport
Baghdad International Airport , previously Saddam International Airport ( ar, مطار بغداد الدولي, Maṭār Baġdād ad-Dawaliyy) is Iraq's largest international airport, located in a suburb about west of downtown Baghdad in the ...
on 3 January 2020, which also killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani
Qasem Soleimani ( fa, قاسم سلیمانی, ; 11 March 19573January 2020) was an Iranian military officer who served in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). From 1998 until his assassination in 2020, he was the commander of the Quds F ...
.
Biography
Jamal Jaafar al-Ibrahimi was born on 1 July 1954 in Abu Al-Khaseeb District
Abu Al-Khaseeb District () is a district of the Basra Governorate, Iraq. Its seat is the town of Abu Al-Khaseeb
Abu Al-Khaseeb (sometimes spelled Abu Al-Khasib) is a town in Abu Al-Khaseeb District, Basra Governorate, southern Iraq. Its name me ...
, Basra Governorate
Basra Governorate ( ar, محافظة البصرة ), also called Basra Province, is a Governorates of Iraq, governorate in southern Iraq, bordering Kuwait to the south and Iran to the east. The capital is the city of Basra, located in the Basrah ...
, Iraq, to an Iraqi father and an Iranian mother. He finished his studies in engineering in 1977 and in the same year joined the Shia
Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest Islamic schools and branches, branch of Islam. It holds that the Prophets and messengers in Islam, Islamic prophet Muhammad in Islam, Muhammad designated Ali, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his S ...
-based Dawa Party, which opposed the Ba'athist government.
Military career
On 1979, after the activity of the Dawa Party was banned and hundreds of opponents were sentenced to death by Saddam Hussein. Al-Muhandis fled, across the border to Ahvaz
Ahvaz ( fa, اهواز, Ahvâz ) is a city in the southwest of Iran and the capital of Khuzestan province. Ahvaz's population is about 1,300,000 and its built-up area with the nearby town of Sheybani is home to 1,136,989 inhabitants. It is hom ...
in Iran, where the Iranians had set up a camp to train Iraqi dissidents, with the aim of undermining Saddam. He was known as Jamal al-Ibrahimi in Iran and he became a citizen of Iran after a marriage. He began working with Iran's Revolutionary Guard
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC; fa, سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی, Sepāh-e Pāsdārān-e Enghelāb-e Eslāmi, lit=Army of Guardians of the Islamic Revolution also Sepāh or Pasdaran for short) is a branch o ...
in Kuwait in 1983, organizing attacks on embassies of countries that supported Saddam in the Iran–Iraq War
The Iran–Iraq War was an armed conflict between Iran and Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. It began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for almost eight years, until the acceptance of United Nations Security Council ...
. Hours after the December 1983 bomb attacks on U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait, he fled to Iran.[ He was later convicted and sentenced to death in absentia by a court in Kuwait for planning the attacks.] He was later appointed a military adviser to the Quds Force
The Quds Force ( fa, نیروی قدس, niru-ye qods, Jerusalem Force) is one of five branches of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) specializing in unconventional warfare and military intelligence operations. U.S. Army's Iraq War ...
, advising on attacks against Iraqi military based in his hometown of Basra.[
He returned to Iraq following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and served as a security adviser to the first Iraqi prime minister after the invasion, ]Ibrahim al-Jaafari
Ibrahim Abd al-Karim al-Eshaiker ( ar, إبراهيم عبد الكريم الأشيقر; born 25 March 1947), also known as Ibrahim al-Jaafari, is an Iraqi politician who was Prime Minister of Iraq in the Iraqi Transitional Government from 2005 ...
. In 2005, he was elected to the Iraqi Parliament
The Council of Representatives ( ar, مجلس النواب, Majlis an-Nuwwāb al-ʿIrāqiyy; ku, ئهنجومهنی نوێنهران, ''Enjumen-e Nûnerên''), usually referred to simply as the Parliament is the unicameral legislature o ...
as a Dawa Party representative for the Babil Governorate
Babil Governorate or Babylon Province ( ar, محافظة بابل ''Muḥāfaẓa Bābil'') is a governorate in central Iraq. It has an area of , with an estimated population of 2,065,042 people in 2018. The provincial capital is the city of Hill ...
.[ When U.S. officials realised his identity and connection with the 1983 attacks, they raised the issue with then-Iraqi prime minister ]Nouri al-Maliki
Nouri Kamil Muhammad-Hasan al-Maliki ( ar, نوري المالكي; born 20 June 1950), also known as Jawad al-Maliki (), is secretary-general of the Islamic Dawa Party and was the prime minister of Iraq from 2006 to 2014 and the vice president ...
in 2006 or 2007. He had to flee to Iran. He formed Kata'ib Hezbollah
Kata'ib Hezbollah ( ar, كتائب حزب الله, lit=Battalions of the Party of God)—or the Hezbollah Battalions—is a radical Iraqi Shiite paramilitary group which is part of the Popular Mobilization Forces backed by Iran. During the Ir ...
between 2003 and 2007.
He returned to Iraq following the withdrawal of US troops (December 2011) to head the Kata'ib Hezbollah militia;[ he then became deputy chief of the ]Popular Mobilization Forces
The Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) ( ar, الحشد الشعبي ''al-Ḥashd ash-Shaʿbī''), also known as the People's Mobilization Committee (PMC) and the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), is an Iraqi state-sponsored umbrella organization ...
.
On 31 December 2019, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
Michael Richard Pompeo (; born December 30, 1963) is an American politician, diplomat, and businessman who served under President Donald Trump as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 2017 to 2018 and as the 70th United State ...
named al-Muhandis, along with Qais Khazali
Qais Hadi Sayed Hasan al-Khazali ( ar, قيس هادي سيد حسن الخزعلي; born 20 June 1974) is best known as the founder and leader of the Iran-backed Special Groups in Iraq from June 2006 until his capture by British forces in Marc ...
, Hadi al-Amiri, and Falih Alfayyadh
Falih Faisal Fahad Al-Fayyadh ( ar, فالح الفياض) is an Iraqi politician, former head and advisor of the National Security Council, and currently the chairman of the Popular Mobilization Forces He is also the founder of the " Ataa Movem ...
, as responsible for the attack on the United States embassy in Baghdad
The 2019–20 attack on the U.S. embassy occurred in Baghdad, Iraq, on 31 December 2019. Kata'ib Hezbollah militiamen and their Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) supporters and sympathizers attacked the U.S. embassy in the Green Zone in response ...
.
On 3 January 2020, al-Muhandis was killed along with Qasem Soleimani
Qasem Soleimani ( fa, قاسم سلیمانی, ; 11 March 19573January 2020) was an Iranian military officer who served in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). From 1998 until his assassination in 2020, he was the commander of the Quds F ...
in a U.S. airstrike at Baghdad International Airport.
War against ISIL in Iraq
After the formation of the Popular Mobilization Forces
The Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) ( ar, الحشد الشعبي ''al-Ḥashd ash-Shaʿbī''), also known as the People's Mobilization Committee (PMC) and the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), is an Iraqi state-sponsored umbrella organization ...
(PMF) as a group in 2014 that originated to help Iraq defeat ISIL, he was appointed to command the group. The PMF group was composed of some 40 militias that fought in nearly every major battle against ISIL.
Sanctions
In 2009, al-Muhandis was sanctioned by the United States Department of the Treasury
The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States, where it serves as an executive department. The department oversees the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and t ...
for allegedly helping the IRGC
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC; fa, سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی, Sepāh-e Pāsdārān-e Enghelāb-e Eslāmi, lit=Army of Guardians of the Islamic Revolution also Sepāh or Pasdaran for short) is a branch o ...
. Muhandis was also accused of being linked to the IJO who participated in 1983 United States embassy bombing in Beirut
The April 18, 1983 United States embassy bombing was a suicide bombing in Beirut, Lebanon, that killed 32 Lebanese, 17 Americans, and 14 visitors and passers-by. The victims were mostly embassy and CIA staff members, but also included several US ...
.
Death
Abu Mahdi was killed on 3 January 2020 around 1:00a.m. local time (22:00 UTC 2January), by the U.S.
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
drone strike
Drone warfare is a form of aerial warfare using unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV) or weaponized commercial unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). The United States, United Kingdom, Israel, China, South Korea, Iran, Italy, France, India, Pakist ...
which targeted Qasem Soleimani and his convoy near Baghdad International Airport
Baghdad International Airport , previously Saddam International Airport ( ar, مطار بغداد الدولي, Maṭār Baġdād ad-Dawaliyy) is Iraq's largest international airport, located in a suburb about west of downtown Baghdad in the ...
. BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadca ...
, NBC News
NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is, in turn, a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's var ...
, DW News
''DW News'' is a global English-language news TV program broadcast by German public international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW). The first program aired the summer of 2015.
History
DW News was launched on 22 June 2015 and replaced DW progr ...
, ''Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'', ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' and other media outlets have described the killing as an assassination.
Reaction
Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)
The Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine ( ar, حركة الجهاد الإسلامي في فلسطين, ''Harakat al-Jihād al-Islāmi fi Filastīn''), known in the West simply as Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), is a Palestinian Islamist par ...
group mentioned him as one of the symbols of Iraqi liberation from the US occupation and also condolences to the Iraqi for the death of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
Funeral and burial
On 4 January, a funeral procession for Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and Soleimani was held in Baghdad with thousands of mourners in attendance, waving Iraqi and militia flags and chanting "death to America, death to Israel". The procession started at the Al-Kadhimiya Mosque
Al-Kadhimiya Mosque ( ar, مَسْجِد ٱلْكَاظِمِيَّة, Masjid Al-Kāẓimiyyah) or Al-Kadhimayn Shrine ( ar, حَرَم ٱلْكَاظِمَيْن, Ḥaram Al-Kāẓimayn) is a Shi'ite Islamic mosque and shrine located in the Kād ...
in Baghdad. Iraq's prime minister, Adil Abdul-Mahdi
Adil Abdul-Mahdi al-Muntafiki ( ar, عادل عبد المهدي المنتفكي, born 1 January 1942) is an Iraqi politician who served as Prime Minister of Iraq from October 2018 until May 2020, hundreds of protestors of ''Tishreen revolutio ...
, and leaders of Iran-backed militias attended the funeral procession. They were taken to the holy Shia cities of Najaf
Najaf ( ar, ٱلنَّجَف) or An-Najaf al-Ashraf ( ar, ٱلنَّجَف ٱلْأَشْرَف), also known as Baniqia ( ar, بَانِيقِيَا), is a city in central Iraq about 160 km (100 mi) south of Baghdad. Its estimated popula ...
and Karbala
Karbala or Kerbala ( ar, كَرْبَلَاء, Karbalāʾ , , also ;) is a city in central Iraq, located about southwest of Baghdad, and a few miles east of Lake Milh, also known as Razzaza Lake. Karbala is the capital of Karbala Governorat ...
were held funeral prayers on them.
He was transferred to Iran for the DNA test. A funeral procession was started from Ahvaz
Ahvaz ( fa, اهواز, Ahvâz ) is a city in the southwest of Iran and the capital of Khuzestan province. Ahvaz's population is about 1,300,000 and its built-up area with the nearby town of Sheybani is home to 1,136,989 inhabitants. It is hom ...
then was taken them to Mashhad
Mashhad ( fa, مشهد, Mašhad ), also spelled Mashad, is the List of Iranian cities by population, second-most-populous city in Iran, located in the relatively remote north-east of the country about from Tehran. It serves as the capital of R ...
. On 6 January, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei
Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei ( fa, سید علی حسینی خامنهای, ; born 19 April 1939) is a Twelver Shia ''marja and the second and current Supreme Leader of Iran, in office since 1989. He was previously the third president o ...
held funeral prayers among hundreds of thousands of people and crying in front of the flag-draped coffins for the deceased. On 7 January, his body was returned to Iraq and transferred to his hometown of Basra. His burial was delayed because of the huge crowd at the funeral. On 8 January, Al-Muhandis was buried in Iraq's Najaf where hundreds of mourners gathered to pay their final respects. Funeral processions were also held in several Iraqi cities prior to Najaf, including Baghdad and Karbala.
First anniversary
On 3 January 2021, the first anniversary of Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis' deaths was observed in Baghdad. Tens of thousands of Iraqis marched on the highway leading to the airport while chanting anti-American slogans.
See also
*Abu Mahdi (missile)
Abu Mahdi ( fa, موشک ابومهدی), complete name: "Shahid (Martyr) Abu-Mahdi al-Muhandis missile" ( fa, موشک شهید ابومهدی المهندس), is an Iranian naval cruise missile with a range of over 1000 km. The missile is ...
* USA kill or capture strategy in Iraq
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Muhandis, Abu Mahdi
1954 births
2020 deaths
People from Basra
Iraqi Shia Muslims
Iraqi people of Iranian descent
Iraqi engineers
University of Technology, Iraq alumni
Islamic Dawa Party
Iraqi insurgency (2011–2013)
People of the War in Iraq (2013–2017)
Assassinations in Iraq
Deaths by United States drone strikes in Iraq
Assassinated Iraqi politicians
Members of the Popular Mobilization Forces
Members of the Council of Representatives of Iraq
Anti-Americanism
Individuals related to Iran Sanctions
Individuals designated as terrorists by the United States government
People killed in Central Intelligence Agency operations