Hadi al-Amiri

Hadi al-Amiri (born 1954 in Diyala Province, Iraq) is an influential Iraqi Twelver Shia politician and military figure, head of the Badr Organization, and one of the most powerful figures in Iraq's Iran-aligned political and military landscape. Born in Diyala Province, he joined the Islamic Dawa Party as a young man and was forced to flee Iraq following Saddam Hussein's violent crackdown on Shia political organizations in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

He settled in Iran, where he became a founding member and later commander of the Badr Corps — the armed wing of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), trained and equipped by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He led Badr forces in combat during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), fighting alongside Iranian forces against Saddam's army. He developed close personal and professional relationships with IRGC commanders, including Qasem Soleimani, that would define his political career for decades.

He returned to Iraq following the 2003 US invasion and oversaw the transformation of the Badr Corps into the Badr Organization, a political party and armed faction. He served as Minister of Transport in Iraq from 2010 to 2014, a position that gave him control over significant state resources and patronage networks. During the ISIS crisis, his Badr forces were among the most effective components of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). His Fatah Alliance, comprising PMF-affiliated parties, came second in the 2018 parliamentary elections. He is widely considered Iran's most reliable political ally in Iraq and has been sanctioned by the United States.