How Iran-Backed Militias Are Funding Their Operations: A Shocking Reveal

Using their control of the Sudani government, Iran-backed terrorist groups and militias are developing significant new strands of threat financing using Iraq’s oil sector, which combine to provide billions of dollars of illicit value each year. What began as a minor market for Visa and Mastercard in early 2023 suddenly exploded into a $1.5 billion- a -month cash movement operation—one that US and Iraqi officials now say was driven by. There are approximately 40 militant groups backed by Iran in the region, Baraa Shiban, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a British defense and security think-tank, told. These groups have received weapons, training, funding , and safe haven from Iran , and in turn, have worked to destabilize Israel, with the ultimate goal of the destruction of the state. Armed groups lost access to dollars when a banking loophole was closed. They quickly pivoted to exploit a currency-exchange scheme using cards that at its peak involved $1.5 billion a month. In retaliatory airstrikes Feb. 2, the US, according to American officials, hit 85 targets at seven locations linked to militant groups that Iran funds and to the country’s Quds Force, the wing of. 1 day ago · Wilson’s description of the Polisario as “a Marxist militia backed by Iran , Hezbollah and Russia providing Iran a strategic outpost in Africa” strips away decades of carefully constructed.