By Anas al-Bar | 2024-09-19

Sharp disputes over smuggling profits are raging among militias aligned with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that have established a foothold on the Iraq-Syria border, local sources said.

The quarrels often escalate into armed skirmishes that lead to the temporary closure of illegal border crossings and a halt in the flow of smuggled weapons and goods.

According to local sources, Sikak crossing in the Syrian border town of Albu Kamal, which is one of the main smuggling conduits, was closed several times in recent weeks as a result of escalating tensions among Iran's proxies.

Kataib Hizbullah and Kataib Sayed al-Shuhada accused each other of seizing the largest shares of the crossing's revenues and attempting to dominate its management.

The two groups and other IRGC-aligned militias in the area use the crossing to smuggle weapons, drugs, fuel, food products and livestock, which generates huge amounts of money for them.

The disputes date back two years, to a time when Kataib Hizbullah managed the crossing, exercising a monopoly on smuggling activities through a leader named Akram Abu Rama al-Iraqi, angering the other militias.

These armed groups saw Kataib Hizbullah as working to marginalize them and deprive them of their most important sources of funding.

IRGC fails to end the disputes

Tensions soared on several occasions after Kataib Hizbullah refused to allow the shipments of other militias to cross, including the smuggled narcotics of Sayed al-Shuhada and the livestock and goods of Asaib Ahl al-Haq.

The IRGC has failed to put an end to the disputes, despite taking measures to prevent them from escalating, including the dismissal of Abu Rama al-Iraqi from managing the crossing.

The disputes reflect the fragility of the relationship between the militias, political analyst Tariq al-Shammari told Al-Fassel.

The militias function like "organized crime mafias seeking their personal gain, and they are ready to do anything to protect their sources of illicit wealth," he said.

Their struggle over influence in the border area is "likely to escalate beyond Iran's control and orders, despite the fact that all these groups, under all the different names, are subordinate to the IRGC," al-Shammari said.

"The militias' smuggling activities undermine the stability of Iraq, Syria and the region as a whole and have serious repercussions on regional security," he said.

"Iran's proxies are still using the illegal border crossings to smuggle weapons and missiles and use them to provoke wars," he said, while revenue-generating drug trafficking operations are "a primary objective for these proxies."

Iraqi authorities confiscated large quantities of illegal drugs last year, with an estimated value of more than $140 million, he said.