Akram al-Kaabi

Akram Abbas al-Ka'abi (أكرم الكعبي; born 17 July 1977) is an Iraqi militant leader who is the founder and Secretary-General of Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba (HHN) in Iraq. Kaabi is a U.S.-designated terrorist who is regarded as one of the main operatives of IRGC's Quds Force in Iraq. He has been an ardent supporter and promoter of Iranian influence in Iraq while being the most outspoken critic of American military presence as he seeks to compel U.S. forces to withdraw completely from Iraq.

Al-Kaabi's militia, HHN, emerged in 2013 as an offshoot of the Iraqi Shi'ite paramilitary group Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq.

History
Al-Kaabi was born in 1977 in the city of Amarah, a Shi'ite city in southern Iraq. He studied religion in the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf, where he was a student of Ayatollah Muhammad-Sadiq al-Sadr, father of Iraqi Shia cleric and militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr. Afterwards he went on to serve as an imam at a mosque in the city of Musayyib in central Iraq. In 2003, al-Kaabi joined the Sadrist Mahdi Army, where he planned and led attacks against Iraqi and U.S.-led Coalition forces with training and funding from Iran's Quds Force. He left the Mahdi Army in 2008 and later became the deputy leader of Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq. In an interview with Long War Journal, al-Kaabi stated he would overthrow the Iraqi government if ordered by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Al-Kaabi formed HHN militia in 2013 in response to the rise of ISIS in Syria, calling for Iraqi Shi'ite militias to travel to Syria and fight alongside the Syrian government.

Sanctions
On 16 September 2008, the U.S. Department of the Treasury designated Akram al-Kaabi as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) "for threatening the peace and stability of Iraq." The sanction is based on Executive Order 13438 and al-Kaabi was placed on OFAC's Specially Designated Nationals List.

On 5 March 2019, the U.S. Department of State designated al-Kaabi as an international terrorist under the counterterrorism authority Executive Order 13224 due to his involvement in carrying out attacks against Coalition forces and innocent Iraqi citizens.