This is CBSI in the world. I'm John Batson with Bill Raju, my colleague and co-host,

and we're very pleased to welcome two of his excellent reporters at the Long War Journal,

Jonathan Sia and Bridget Toomey, reporting on an armored column, at least in the photograph,

made up of what are called militias in Iran and Iraq,

but in fact are direct arms of the Tehran regime.

The Qatari New Arab writes the report that Ismail Ghani, the commander of the Islamic

Revolutionary Guids Force, met with Tehran's Iraqi proxies in Baghdad earlier this week.

There's a pregnant opening.

Bridget, a very good evening to you.

Thank you for joining us.

The question here is,

what is the militia of Iraq? Is it considered a ferocious organization, a boys club,

and why is it that there's photographs of what looks to be major U.S. armor column floating with their flags.

Do they have an armored division?

Good evening to you, Britain.

Hi, John.

Thanks for having me.

So in Iraq, there's a series of militias, which are backed by Tehran.

Most of them are part of what's called the Popular Mobilization Forces, which is an Iraqi security organization.

But these militias really don't answer to the Iraqi government.

They respond to the interests of the Iranian regime.

And they contain substantial armed you know, armed components.

...