The Islamic State’s sudden capture of much of northern Iraq, including the country’s third largest city of Mosul, and the resulting collapse of the Iraqi Army, in June 2014, was a turning point for Shi’a militias in the country. Formerly sidelined, these groups have now been able to use the fight against the Islamic State to vastly restore their political and military power. A key trigger was the fatwa (religious edict) issued on June 13 by Iraq’s highest ranking Shi’a cleric, Grand Ayatollah al-Sayyid Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani. Sistani’s fatwa called upon “all able-bodied Iraqis” to defend the country, and “to volunteer into the security forces”, an action which Sistani described as “wajib jihad al-kafai,” i.e. an obligation to defend the country and its people (Sistani.org, June 13, 2014). On June 15, two days after the fatwa, Falih al-Fayyad, the government’s national security advisor, announced the then-prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, had ordered the establishment of the “Hashd al-Sha’abi,” or Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella organization for the newly resurgent Shi’a militias, in order to manage the tremendous flow of the Shi’a volunteers, and to organize their recruitment, equipping and deployment (Herak, July 7, 2014; al-Sumaria, January 15). It is estimated that close to a million volunteers answered Sistani’s call and signed up in the following weeks and months (Buratha News, October 18, 2014). Some of the most important militias under the Hashd al-Sha’abi include the Badr Organization, Saraya al-Salam, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, Saraya Taleaa al-Khorasani and Kata’ib Imam Ali.