Liwa al-Tafuf

Liwa al-Tafuf (Arabic: لواء الطفوف, lit. 'Al-Tafuf Brigade') also known as the 13th PMF Brigade is a brigade of the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq which split from Liwa Ali al-Akbar in 2014 and was associated with the Imam Husayn Shrine and has participated in the War in Iraq, mostly against the Islamic State, which includes the recapturing of al-Ba'aj and the Battle of Al-Qa'im in 2017.^[1]

Liwa al-Tafuf
لواء الطفوف
Founding leader	Qasim Muslih
Dates of operation	2014-Present
Split from	Liwa Ali al-Akbar
Country	Iraq
Allegiance	Popular Mobilization Forces
Ideology	Shia Islamism Anti-Americanism
Status	active
Allies	Iran IRGC Kata'ib Hezbollah
Opponents	Islamic State

History

The group was established in 2014 after splitting from the 11th PMF Brigade, Liwa Ali al-Akbar under the guise of Qasim Muslih as the leader of the brigade and tried to remain "legitimate" as a "true" atabat (shrine) but the group fell into the administrative influence of Kata'ib Hezbollah's founder, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. The group became well known for taking old armored vehicles from old tanks graveyards and returning them, with ingenious new modifications, to service.^[2]

The group has allied with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and answers to the group with Kata'ib Hezbollah.^[3] Though the group is considered pro-Iranian, it doesn't view itself as full allies with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and has built a better relationship with the local Sunni Muslim populations in Iraq than most of the other PMF Brigades and pro-Iranian militias.^[4][5]

The group has helped smuggled Iranian goods and commerce with Kata'ib Hezbollah, where both basically control it, in the al-Qaim–al-Bukamal border crossing to Syria which was supposedly used to help others battle the Islamic State in Syria during the Syrian civil war.^[6] Though some of the goods are supplies to groups, Liwa al-Tafuf and other groups help enable the cross-border drug trade with Iraq and Syria.^[7]