Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis

Jamal Ja'far Muhammad Ali Al Ibrahim (Arabic: جمال جعفر محمد علي آل إبراهيم Jamāl Jaʿfar Muḥammad ʿAlīy ʾĀl ʾIbrāhīm, 16 November 1954 – 3 January 2020), better known by his kunya Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis (Arabic: أبو مهدي المهندس, lit. 'Father of Mahdi, the Engineer'), was an Iraqi paramilitary leader and former chief of staff of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). At the time of his death, he was deputy chairman of the PMC.

From 1977, he was an opponent of Saddam Hussein. He became the commander of volunteer militias that grew from the need to combat ISIS, including the Kata'ib Hezbollah paramilitary group, which is designated a terror organisation by the governments of Japan, the US and the UAE; and prior to that worked with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) against Saddam's regime. Muhandis was on the United States list of designated terrorists since 2009.

Allegations of terrorism have been levelled against him over his activities in Kuwait in the 1980s. He was sentenced to death in absentia in 2007 by a court in Kuwait for his involvement in the 1983 Kuwait bombings. However, this has been disputed due to his role in combating the Ba’ath Party regime rather than supporting it (via attacking Kuwait). The charges were dropped when the new Iraqi government was formed in 2004. The organisations he oversaw, such as the Popular Mobilization Forces have been reported to have close links to the IRGC's Quds Force. Al-Muhandis was held responsible for planning the attack on the American embassy in Baghdad in late December 2019.

He was tracked down and killed by a targeted U.S. drone strike near Baghdad International Airport on 3 January 2020, which also killed the head of Iran's expeditionary Quds Force Qasem Soleimani.