THE SHIITE JIHAD IN SYRIA AND ITS REGIONAL EFFECTS

52 n THE SHIITE JIHAD IN SYRIA
Liwa Dhulfiqar both named new commanders for activities in Iraq, and the
former launched a recruitment effort for Iraq operations. (See appendix 8.)
Also reorienting toward the conflict in Iraq was the Badr Organization’s
Quwet al-Shahid Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, whose patches bear the dome
of Sayyeda Zainab with a Kalashnikov to denote their Syria-focused mission.
KSS, while increasingly active on the Iraq front, has continued to send
fighters to Syria. On July 26, 2014, the group even began a renewed socialmedia-based
recruitment drive for the jihad in both countries. 276 Elements
once aligned with LAFA, too, have expanded their branding to include Iraq,
with their Iraq activities helping expose various splits within the original network.
As for the redeployments to Iraq, they were supported by a comprehensive
program and new popular-committee-style militias guided by established
Iranian proxy groups.
LAFA groups’ presence in Iraq, centered on core fighters from the Syria
battle, grew markedly following ISIS’s advances in June 2014. Yet LAFA-
Syria seemed to distance itself from its Iraqi outgrowth, denying in July any
connection to an Iraqi fighter named Sayyed Hajj Hussein (Abu Zainab). 277
Throughout the recruitment effort for Syria, Iran-backed phone recruitment
centers regularly used the LAFA name, although whether this was executed
with the consent of the group’s leaders is unknown.
Cast as LAFA’s Iraq wing, Liwa Abu Fadl al-Abbas Tashkil Iraq was
announced via Facebook in March 2014 and claimed Sadrist ayatollah Qasim
al-Tai as its leader. What appeared to be an extension of LAFA in Syria,
LAFA-Iraq morphed into an organization that no longer answered to Abu
Ajeeb in Damascus and began recruiting forces within Iraq to fight battles
there. Indeed, LAFA-Syria’s official Facebook page openly criticized this
organization, including through wall posts by media representative “Daniel,”
who disavowed any connection to the Iraqi wing and said LAFA-Syria “will
not allow or forgive those attempting to distort or steal our martyrs’ pride.” 278
Abu Ali al-Darraji, introduced earlier in connection with LAFA’s founding,
also sought to import the LAFA brand to Iraq, establishing what
appeared to be his own branch in June 2014. 279 This new group went by the
name Liwa Abu Fadl al-Abbas Khadem al-Sayyeda Zainab (LAFA–Darraji
Branch), whose official Facebook page refers to Darraji as “secretary-general,”
a position officially held in LAFA-Syria by Abu Ajeeb. 280 The LAFA–Darraji
Branch has made little mention of Abu Ajeeb nor his Iraqi Shiite fellow travelers
still commanding LAFA-Syria. In one Facebook post by the LAFA–
Darraji Branch, Ajeeb is referred to as a “brother.” 281