Kawader Hezbollah al-Qudama, a new electoral partner to former premier Nouri al-Maliki, is not the same as Kataib Hezbollah. It contains members of the older Islamic Resistance cells that fought Saddam and then the U.S.-led coalition after 2003. Maliki is gathering marginal resistance figures to him and Kataib Hezbollah has still not openly shown its hand in parliamentary politics.
On April 30, 2021, former premier Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law list announced that it will participate in the planned October 2021 general elections in Iraq within a pre-electoral coalition of eight parties. Of these parties two include the term Hezbollah in their names; Kawader Hezbollah al-Qudama (the Old-timer Hezbollah Cadres) (KHQ) (Figure 1) and Hezbollah al-Iraq (the Iraqi Hezbollah). Though widely assumed to be Kataib Hezbollah (KH), these groups actually contain anti-Saddam and anti-U.S. resistance (muqawama) elements that have been operational even before the formation of KH. Partnering with these small and not especially popular "old timers" is an indication that Maliki is now reduced to allying with small-time militia politicians in an effort to regrow his political influence. It also underlines the strengthening alignment between Maliki, the institutional godfather of the muqawama since around 2012, and today's muqawama politicians.