Iran Brings In Iraqi Militia To Crack Down On Protesters Amid US Threats

Foreign militia, in the guise of Shia pilgrims, are reportedly entering Iran to help crush the nationwide unrest against Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei's regime. The exact number of fighters who entered Iran is not known, but, according to American news outlet The Media Line, at least 60 similar 50-seater buses, carrying young Iraqi men, have crossed the Iranian border.

Among those young men who took up weapons for Iran is Mohammed Iyad, a 37-year-old Iraqi. According to his mother, Iyad was recruited by the Iraqi Hezbollah group for $600 a month.

She told The Media Line that her son had been unemployed for over three years. He was desperate for work, and on January 5, a friend offered him $600 a month to go and defend the Islamic Revolution in Iran.

"Despite our refusal, he insisted on going. He left on Tuesday, January 6, and said he went to Basra and then to the Iranian border via the Shalamcheh border crossing. We lost contact with him on Wednesday after the internet went down," Iyad's mother said.

The report said several Iraqi Shiite militias are involved in suppressing the Iranian protests as part of an organised pipeline.

"I don't know if he'll return or not. I'm very affected, and I hope he comes back alive. He previously participated in the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), but he was dismissed after 2017 and the liberation from ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria). Since then, the idea of fighting and taking up arms has haunted him, and he hasn't been able to forget it," he added.

The American outlet also talked to an Iraqi Interior Ministry employee working at the Shalamcheh border crossing between Iraq and Iran. Ali D, who refused to give his full name, told the publication that more than 60 buses had crossed the border between Iraq and Iran by the evening of January 11.

He said each bus with a capacity of 50 people carried young men who identified themselves as pilgrims to holy sites in Iran, but their appearance didn't reflect that.

"These religious trips usually carry the logos of well-known companies or offices, and the buses are typically mixed, with families and young people. However, all the buses that left were carrying only young men wearing identical black shirts," he said.

Ali D said the incident happened while he was on duty at the border. "We discussed the presence of all these buses that left without us knowing their destination, and they left without being inspected," he added.

Abu Azrael, a senior commander in the Imam Ali Brigades, an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia operating under the umbrella of the PMF, also recently posted on X a video of himself directing military vehicles leaving an Iraqi Interior Ministry camp.

The clip showed several military vehicles, bearing Iraqi government license plates, leaving the 8th Unit of the Law Enforcement Command of the Iraqi Federal Police. 

من يحرق بيوتَ الله ويعتدي على مؤسساتِ الشعب، فليس ثائرًا ولا مصلحًا، بل أداةٌ رخيصة بيد أعداء الأمة، ينفّذ أجنداتٍ صهيونية بغطاء الفوضى والشعارات الكاذبة.

مع الجمهورية ضد الاستكبار العالمي pic.twitter.com/lIapbUMZBd

— أبو عزرائيل - Abu Azrael (@abu_azrael78) January 11, 2026

"Whoever burns houses of worship and attacks the people's institutions is neither a revolutionary nor a reformer, but rather a cheap tool in the hands of the nation's enemies, implementing Zionist agendas under the guise of chaos and false slogans ... with the Republic against global arrogance," Azrael wrote along with the video.

NDTV could not independently verify whether these military vehicles displaying the flags of the PMF and the Imam Ali Brigades actually reached Iran.

However, the Persian-language account of the US State Department post on X states that the United States is alarmed by reports that Iran's Islamic Republic regime has deployed Hezbollah terrorists and Iraqi militants to suppress peaceful protests. 

"This regime has spent billions of dollars belonging to the Iranian people on terrorist proxy forces. Deploying those forces against its own citizens would be yet another profound betrayal of the Iranian people," it wrote. 

The presence of Iraqi militia in Iran was also confirmed by Mehdi Reza, an Iranian opposition figure and one of the leaders of media campaigns supporting the protests. 

"For more than a week, Iraqi militias have been involved in suppressing the demonstrations in various parts of Iran, but many of them have been deployed to guard official or military headquarters, according to confirmations from protesters inside Iran," he told The Media Line.

"The numbers are significant, and eyewitnesses in Ahvaz who participated in the demonstrations reported that among those involved in suppressing them were individuals who spoke Arabic with an Iraqi accent," he added.

Trump Claims Killing Of Iran Protesters 'Has Stopped' 

US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he's been told “on good authority” that plans for executions in Iran have stopped, even as Tehran has signalled fast trials and executions ahead in its crackdown on protesters.

The US president's claims, which were made with few details, come as he's told protesting Iranians in recent days that “help is on the way” and that his administration would “act accordingly” to respond to the Iranian government.

But Trump has not offered any details about how the US might respond, and it wasn't clear if his comments Wednesday indicated he would hold off on action.