US Central Command commander Admiral Brad Cooper said on October 16 that Iran-aligned armed groups, including Shia militias in Iraq, were sending money back to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Axios reported. Cooper described the transfers as a response to financial pressure on Iran after months of conflict and economic restrictions.
Axios quoted Cooper saying there were reports of militia groups withholding payments to their own fighters to funnel money to the IRGC, which he said was also failing to pay its troops. The report did not identify specific Iraqi factions or provide documentary evidence of individual transfers. The statement should therefore be understood as a US military commander’s assessment, not as independently verified accounting for Kataib Hezbollah, Harakat al-Nujaba, Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada or every organization linked to the Popular Mobilization Forces.
Economic pressure cited by Washington
Cooper connected the alleged transfers to the US naval blockade and sanctions pressure on Iran. He said the blockade had cost Iran $25 billion in lost oil revenue and that US authorities had frozen $350 million in Iranian cryptocurrency in recent weeks. Those figures and claims were attributed to Cooper in the Axios report.
Cooper also said Iran was withholding salaries, pensions and benefits from public-sector workers, security forces and IRGC personnel. Axios reported his view that the financial strain was affecting the regional network of Iran-backed groups. The article did not include a response from the Iraqi factions named in this entry, and it did not establish the size, timing or route of any militia-to-IRGC payments.
Militia and state distinctions
Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) is a state umbrella that includes many factions with differing command ties and political roles. The PMF is not interchangeable with Kataib Hezbollah or other individual groups. Likewise, an allegation about unspecified Shia militias does not establish conduct by every PMF-linked faction.
The report matters because it describes a potential shift in financing between Iran and armed allies during economic pressure, but its evidentiary basis in the article is an attributed US military statement. Axios’s account is available here.