2026-05-24T11:19:22+00:00
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Shafaq News- Baghdad
US interrogators have extracted intelligence from detained Iraqi operative Mohammed Baqir al-Saadi, pointing to the existence of semi-autonomous cells embedded within Iraq's armed factions —units operating within the Popular Mobilization Forces, but have independent command structures and maintain direct, unmediated links to Iran's Quds Force.
Informed Iraqi sources told Shafaq News on Sunday that the disclosure represents the most operationally significant detail to emerge from al-Saadi's detention since his arrest on May 15. According to sources briefed on the investigation, analysis of electronic devices seized at the time of his arrest —mobile phones and a laptop containing sensitive communications data— led investigators to the cell networks. The devices revealed coordination channels running directly between field operatives inside Iraq and the Quds Force, bypassing the standard command hierarchies of the factions to which those operatives nominally belong.
A second source told Shafaq News that individuals connected to the exposed networks have begun taking evasive action: changing residences, abandoning existing communication devices, and reorganizing movement patterns inside Iraq. “Several have left the country entirely, traveling to Iran and other destinations,” the source said, driven by fear of targeted operations, arrest, or Iraqi government pursuit if Washington formally requests Baghdad's cooperation in the case.
Al-Saadi was carrying an Iraqi service passport at the time of his detention, a document reserved for state employees that provides facilitated transit through Iraqi airports and requires official government authorization to obtain. The United States charged him with plotting twenty attacks across multiple European countries and planning strikes on Jewish institutions in the United States.
The US-sanctioned Kataib Hezbollah, one of the most powerful factions within the PMF, denied last week that al-Saadi was a member, while describing him as "a supporter and admirer of the resistance" who would return home with his head held high.